DESPITE GUARDIAN ANGELS

A new prog act on the prog rock map - Huis (meaning as far as I know doors in english) from Canada and their first offering Despite guardian angels from 2014 issued at canadian label Unicorn Digita. Well, what we have here is a good towards great neo prog album with hints of symphonic prog all done in a beautiful and elegant manner. This is a young band with good potential, the head of the band bassist Michel Joncas gathered around him some talented musicians, some of them well known in prog circles like Michel St-Père the guitarist from another respected band in this field Mystery and on one piece is the ex guitarist from dutch band Knight Area - Mark Vermeule, so the line up is solid and tight aswell as the music offered. What about the music, I must confess I was really hooked from the first piece Beyond the Amstel, really impressive musicianship, subtil and elegant arrangements, lots of synthesisers what else a winner. Another forte tracks are the instrumentals Oude Kerk I & II (Oude Kerk is Amsterdam's oldest building), this is impressive, really tight musicianship, excellent ideas, every musicn involved here is sure what is doing and done very well in the end. The music overall is well crafted , with lots of keyboards and guitars aswell maybe in some parts they remind me of Mystery because of St-Pere guitar touch. Anyway strong compostions under neo/symphonic prog flavour. The art work and overall package is great to, digipak format. So, from me 4 stars, definatly one of the better albums of this year.