IMAGINE

What a musical pearl is this album!Working hard for many years in the Texas area,the band lead by the impressive guitar player JOEL GREGOIRE and the sensational drummer MATT KANZLER,got finally a deal with the very serious and respected SENSORY RECORDS label ! The addition of the beautiful voice of GARY BELIN seemed at the time to represent enough argumets for a promissing band,with a huge potential!The previous albums released-the self produced MUSIC MACHINE and the Christmas album were very well apreciated by the prog aficionados!Of course,the DREAM THEATER stamp,was the guaranteed certificate of high quality music,not at all a musical clone of the prog icons,but of a band with personality and great compsitional skills!Technically speaking the guys were perfect and everything was very pwell done!Unfortunatelly,it didn't fit with the vocalist and due some internal problems the band splitted shortly after the release of this magical album!The cover is superbe and on this album we have at least 2 masterpieces called ION DRIVE-an instrumental composition and IMAGINE, a trully inspired and beautiful musical moment! We hope to hear again about this band,or other musical endeavours of the members of STRIDE -some very talented musicians!Anyway,thank u STRIDE for an album of this caliber and high class!4,5 STARS-and congratulations!