SI ON AVAIT BESOIN D'UNE CINQUIÈME SAISON

About a year ago, I was fresh on the Prog boat. Having just discovered the majority of progressive rock, I listened to one of the more famous Prog albums I could find: "Si on avait besoin d'une cinquième saison." Quite frankly, I thought nothing of it and moved on with my listening. I completely forgot about this album until a week ago as of the time of writing this. As I was looking through the PA top 100 album list I noticed that this album was very high on it. I decided to give it another listen. What a good decision that was. French-Canadian band Harmonium's sophomore effort "Si on avait besoin d'une cinquième saison" (If We Needed a Fifth Season) also known as "Les Cinq Saisons" (The Fifth Season) is a progressive rock staple. The album revolves around a seasonal concept with the first four tracks centered around Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, while the final song represents the imaginary fifth season. This album saw the band take a more progressive approach to their music in contrast to their more folk-rock-oriented self-titled debut. It is filled with the fantastic vocals of Serge Fioni, lush guitars of Michel Normandeau, and outstanding bass of Louis Valois, and newly added Woodwinds and Keys from Pierre Daigneault, and Serge Locat.

The album starts off with the representation of Spring, being "Vert." Starting out with ambient flutes soon followed by melodic guitar and bass, Sergre Fioni's vocals also join the pack as the song takes shape. Fioni's vocals are absolutely beautiful and go perfectly with the soft electric piano and guitar on this track. Around the middle of the song, it goes into an awesome clarinet solo with an echo and phaser from Pierre Daigneault, before jumping back into more Fioni harmonies before ending the song. Right off the bat, Harmonium gives us possibly their best song with an absolute vocal masterclass from Serge Fioni. "Dixie" is a shorter more jumpy folk-oriented song, that represents Summer with stunning accuracy. It features really nice piano work coupled with really nice guitar overtones from Michel Normandeau. Pierre Daigneault also has a really nice Billy Joel-esque clarinet solo, which is followed by an acoustic guitar solo, which is also followed by a short piano solo toward the end of the track. Dixie is the essential Serge Fioni track, as this is 100% his writing style.

"Depuis L Automne," is a 10-minute epic that represents Autumn on the album. This song is stunningly beautiful and one of the album's most progressive. It starts out with a soft guitar progression which is masterfully sung over by Fioni. We are soon introduced to the first glimpse of the Mellotron on the album, and it only gets better. Volume increases as the piano joins the mix with more powerful vocals before abruptly heading into a heavy mellotron section. The section lasts for a sold 2:30 minutes with beautiful Fioni harmonies, before heading into another stunning progression to start the end of the song. Around 8:00 the ending progression really picks up with more harmonies, before transitioning into major progression which closes out the song. This song is one of the best highlights of the album. "En Piene Face" represents Winter on this album. It starts out with a melodic guitar lick that is soon accompanied by Fioni's voice and accordion. Around halfway through the song it heads into the closing progression which is absolutely amazing. Bass joins, along with the accordion, as Fioni's trademark harmonies lead the way into the closing accordion solo, the staple of this song.

"Histoires Sans Paroles" (or "Stories Without" Words) ends off the album in the best way possible. A 17-minute five-movement epic. This song perfectly captures the essence of the imaginary 5th season. It starts out with that iconic flute and mellotron that goes on with a nice progression for a bit towards the beginning, before heading into a very Genesis-esque guitar sequence that sounds like it could be straight off Trespass. Around 5:00 the song heads into an eerie section with Zither and Mellotron. This lasts until around 7:30 when a piano progression comes in. It is joined by vocal harmonies and mellotron, as a flute plays over it. Pierre Daigneault's flute work on this track is absolutely amazing. It goes back into the eerie section from earlier in the song but now turns in to a major variation towards the end of the progression. After a few minutes of this, it becomes more guitar-centered as piano notes join at about 13:30. At 15:00 the song becomes more friendly transitioning into the closing progression with jumpy piano and flute. A pastoral masterpiece for the ages.

This record is one of the greatest Prog albums of all time period. I have grown on it extremely since the first time I heard it. Harmonium proves you don't need a drummer to produce a great album. Usually not having a drummer would be a massive turnoff for me, and while I still prefer a drummer, I don't think that Harmonium could've produced a better album even if they had a drummer. Serge Fioni's vocals are simply the best on this album. Unfortunately, Harmonium only went on to produce one more album after this one, the 85-minute double LP, "L'Heptade." If they had continued they could have been a top 10 prog band easily and dominated the Folk Prog genre. Highly recommend it to anyone.