CROSSING THE DESERT

Iris is one of the almost forgotten bands from the '90's, and to me is strange, here in PA is low rated like on other prog webs. Is that bad???, for sure no, at least to me. Having a solid line up , 2 members from Marillion, the drumer Ian Mosley and bassist Pete Trewasvas and the main man of the band the guitarist and keybordist from Arakeen Sylvain Gouvernaire. What you expect when you have such musician involved here, a good album, yes, a great album , maybe not in the end but for sure not a bad or boring album as amny pretend to be. The music is all instrumental with various atmospheres from mellow to more up tempo, imagine the instrumental side of Marillion, Gouvernaire guitar sound most of the time like Rothery with some Pink Floyd moments like the title track Crossing The Desert . All in all a fairly good album, that is too unnoticed here, maybe the listners would expect something with more vein , more balls in compositions, not some floydian gitar arrangements melted with neo prog. Some good pieces stands apart here like Train De Vie, Top on top or Memory Of Eagle, that shows Iris had great future but for some resons never made it in this circles. 3 stars for Crossing the desert, not a fantastic release but not a bad one for sure.