THE VOYAGE

Being Dutch and performing around mid-80's, Differences was normally a regular name of the SI catalogue.This obscure group comprised of brothers Ardie Westdijk (keyboards, backing vocals) and Arjen Westdijk (guitars, vocals), next to them were drummer Gerard Lock and bassist Aad Van Der Valk.Their debut ''The voyage'' was recorded at Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum with experienced producer and sound enginner Pieter Nieboer, known for his work on several Ekseption albums.The album was originally released in 1985 on vinyl by the little-known Frizz Bee label, re-released in 1991 on SI.

Differences stand exactly on the thin line between the fading 70's Symphonic Rock stylings and the emerging Neo Prog trends of the 80's, leaning slightly towards the first style.The 75'-77' GENESIS seem to be their strongest influence with a bit of second-wave Teutonic aura in the process akin to ANYONE'S DAUGHTER and ROUSSEAU and, of course, some reasonable MARLLION echoes in the more haunting moments.The music though is mostly soft, performed rather in a romantic symphonic style, featuring smooth melodies on guitars and atmospheric synthesizers.The guitar work contains much of STEVE HACKETT's trembling techniques but also some convinving CAMEL/ANYONE'S DAUGHTER-like solos with a deep melodic content.The tracks are quite long and the arrangements are pretty nice, even if Differences avoid any serious interplays and focus on astmospheric, elaborate compositions with both lyrical and instrumental variety.It seems that a dash of higher energy is needed in the most of the tracks, but this will come with the emphatic epic ''The melody'', clocking at 17 minutes, and offering a very British-styled Progressive Rock with heavy MARILLION overtones in the keyboard passages and again some impressive GENESIS orientations in the symphonic textures.Absolutely great and well-composed piece of classic Prog.

We're talking about 1985 here.I admire all these bands trying to keep the prog spirit alive in the middle of its less productive period.Nice GENESIS-influenced Neo/Symphonic Prog of the Dutch school, highlighted by its beautiful epic track.Warmly recommended.