ESCAPE TO HORIZON

Talk about instrumental progressive albums! I can´t believe I had this record lying around so long before I finally had the chance to listen to it. The music here is simply gorgeous! Very fine melodies, lots of inspiration and great perfomances of all involved. Well, not much people involved, actually. This is truly a solo project by the very talented keyboardist and songwriter Laurent Simonnet, who also did the rhtyhm section. But he was helped by no less than five excellent guitarrists, one of which is Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) who played on a couple of songs.

Escape To Horizon is one of those CDs you just put on the CD player and let it play over and over again. A great mix of symphonic rock, neo and ambient music. Very melodic, energetic and beautiful! There are no weak parts to be found on this album (except maybe for the overlong crying baby on the introduction of Ilona, but that´s forgivable, it might be his baby!). Keyboards are all over the place, of course, but - unusual for keyboard-driven albums - there are also lots of room for the guitars and they are a show apart, with fantastic acoustic and electric parts, emotional solos and several memorable melodies. Some people here on PA complained about the use of eletronic drums, but to my ears at least, they fit just right in.

There are no highlights in my opinion, since all the tracks are no less than excellent. Production is quite good too.

Conclusion: a very inspired and convincing instrumental progressive music! If you like lots of guitar and keyboards interplay and very melodic compositions, all done with passion and high craft you should not miss this one! I really hope a follow up is on the way!

Rating: 4.5 stars. Highly recommended.