CROSSING THE DESERT

Iris' sole album is less-than-exemplary neo-prog featuring some former members from Marillion. Not having listened to too much Marillion myself I can't really comment on whether this is better or worse than Marillion's music, so I'll simply talk about how Iris stands up on its own.

For the most part, it doesn't. The album's 8 songs don't vary too much from each other so in 48 minutes not much musical development really happens. It sounds to me like the band members were simply trying to make an album as "epic" as possible and then ended up with a finished product that's a bit too rich without much substance. This album is a close musical equivalent to photographers who aren't particularly good at composing their shots or lighting so they just over-compensate by drowning their pictures in HDR.

In short, if you're the kind of person who loves photos with over-saturation and excessive HDR, you'll love this album, too. If not, be warned.