THE SAGA

Netherlands has always been a strong prog country, and that concerns also this Millenium. But the new generation bands tend to be more short-lived projects; there are several Dutch bands with only one album out. One of them is ICE, but it's a direct continuation to a former band called Maryson which made two conceptual Neo Prog albums in the latter half of the 90's, both being based on fantasy novels of the group's leading man W. J. Maryson alias Wim Stolk. After his departure in 2000 the rest of the group plus Ardie Westdijk on keyboards formed Ice. This album was released by the prog-oriented French label Musea.

Maryson was musically compared to e.g. Strangers On The Train (one of British keyboardist Clive Nolan's projects) and to their countryman Arjen Lucassen's megalomanic project Ayreon. Unsurprisingly also the hour-long The Saga is melodic and synth oriented Neo Prog with a symphonic tendency. I hear some Pendragon in the opening track 'Strangelight', and influences from Marillion's original vocalist Fish in Hein van den Broek's vocals. 'Farewell' is an emotional, somewhat Phil Collins reminding, piano & synth centred ballad just under three minutes long, while several of the ten tracks are around 6-7 minutes. The third track ('The Trail') is an enjoyably soaring instrumental where the guitarist Chris van Hoogdalem has plenty of space to shine.

The song-writing is pretty good all the way and the production is very clear. What irritates me a bit is the dominant presence of synth carpets in the background, and perhaps the capable rhythm section would have deserved more attention in the mix. The nearly 9-minute final track 'This Battle' has exactly the kind of wide canvas bombastic pathos and emotion that an epic natured album like this deserves. The sax part gets rather cheesy though. Nevertheless, this album is strongly recommendable to synth-friendly Neo Prog listeners who enjoy melodic bands such as Pendragon, Marillion, Like Wendy, etc.

It's worth mentioning that the lyrics were written by Rene Sterk upon his own short story called 'Ice'. The Ice project even continued with a musical production. The band performed for several years but never made another album.