EURHYBIA

Totally unknown Neo Prog band from Paris, France, active during the early-90's and named after a female figure from Greek mythology.The line-up was Serge Legall on vocals, Pascal Dottel on guitar, Marc van der Cruyssen on bass, Fabrice Dottel on keyboards and Olivier Jamain on drums, reputedly one or more members were propably of Swiss citizenship.Their only self-titled album was produced by Ange's Francis Decamps and released in 1990 on Ugum.

The style of Eurhybia was full-blown, dynamic Neo Prog with strong symphonic leanings in the vein of COLLAGE, IQ or DEYSS.The music is loaded with tons of keyboards and powerful guitars, accompanied by Serge Legall's passionate, non-accented vocals.Semi-long tracks with an energetic approach, containing plenty of breaks, symphonic interludes, dynamic rhythm guitars but also some decent melodic tunes, always balanced between vocal and instrumental passages.The sound of the synthesizers is quiet thin and plastic at moments, but this flaw has been overcome by the overall strong composing skills of the group.Pascal Dottel, a talented guitarist, shows a tendency towards sharp riffing and melodic solos, but the musicianship remains basically driven by the huge synth waves of keyboardist Fabrice Dottel and his ability to produce emphatic atmospheres through his workouts.Additionally the style is far from easy-going, the breaks are numerous and there is also a fair dose of interplays to be found in ''Eurhybia''.

Not only Eurhybia became an obscure name of the prog scene through the years, but nothing has been heard about any of the band's members.Their sole release remains a very strong output of modern Neo/Symphonic Progressive Rock with some great guitar and keyboard parts.Strongly recommended. ..3.5 stars.

1. The Tightrope Walker (7:20) 2. Nightmare (6:08) 3. Peace Of Mind (Journey Into Yourself) (5:41) 4. Eurhybia (Instrumental) (3:27) 5. Soldiers Of Misery (7:55) 6. Power Against Power (5:48) 7. House Of Cards (Instrumental) (8:23)

Hmmmmm, I recently had the opportunity to listen to this again after many many years. I thought that maybe, my original thoughts on this album might have been too hasty. Unfortuneately not. I'm giving this album only 1 star, not because it is all rubbish, but because a small proportion of it is actually very very good. Or rather, I think it is.

Take the first track, The Tightrope Walker. The first 2:30 instrumental introduction is quite fantastic, reminding of Pallas at their very best. But then the vocals kick in. The problem here is mainly that there is no recognisable melody.

The same is true of the next two tracks, but there is no redeeming instrumental intro.

Track 4, the title track, is entirely instrumental and this is rather good, althought just a little bit clumsy in execution.

Track 6 mirrors track 1. This time just 2 minutes of wonderful music at the start.

I had hopes that the final instrumental, as the longest track, would show some signs of life, but to me it almost sounds improvised. Keyboards parp all over the place seemingly at random. Only towards the end does some kind of structure emerge, but not enough to save it. For free-form jazz fans only!

Just my opinion of course.

Eurhybia is an obscure neo prog band from France who manage to release only one album in 1990 at UGUM label. I was very pleasent surprised what I've heared here, really a fantastic album, excellent musicianship and above all every single piece is a total winner for me. The album benifits from Francis Decamps production, one of the brother of already famous Ange. What stroke me every time I hear this album is a big amount of keybords and how intristing is construncted the pieces, very well done with lots of brilliant moments. Long piece, complex , well elaborated, where the guitar and keybords have an important role. Much more elastic in manner of composing then many neo prog bands I've heared, maybe at some point similar with Pallas, but Eurhybia for sure has their one style and own twists. Very good is the voice of Serge Legall, who doesn't have that specific accent of non-english language speakers, I easely can say that is an english singer. From the great cover art, everything is briliant, with the cherry on the cake of two amazing instrumentals, Eurhybia and House of Cards, the longest piece of the album, where all musicians simply shine. I saw on other prog pages, that this album is a copy of previous neo prog bands, not at all true, this is one of the most exciting neo prog albums I've ever heared in long time. Thosse who can find this unknown band give a spin worth it every second. The CD was at Musea records , but is out of stock for years, no wonder because is an album to colect. 4 stars easy and recommended.