GENTRY

Red Sand is the brain-child of Simon Caron from Québec City. And what a child it is! "Gentry" is the second album of Red Sand with symphonic progressive rock at its best. Simon is becoming one of the top guitarist and an excellent music writer in Québec with flowing texts as lyrics, great music and outstanding guitar solos. The rest of the band is in excellent form and indeed, Red Sand has become a tight unit. As with their first effort "Mirror of Insanity", Gentry has great taste in the style of well, Red Sand! There are traces of Marillion and Genesis but the music is still quite good and distinct. Gentry has required lots of effort and selek production and it shows in the sound and the quality where nothing has been left to chance; these guys are professionals in playing, writing and producing progressive rock.

"Gentry" is a bit dark moody album with a theme that many of us are puppets and live like puppets. The four songs clock at 46:41 and flow one into the other like a single unit. André Dorval has done a superb job in production. Steff's voice is just on the note and the support of Simon Caron (guitars), Mathieu Gosselin (Bass), Pierre Massicote (keyboards) and Pierre Angelillo (drums) create a very memorable album.

For me, this is one of the best discovery and top album of 2005.