MIRIODOR

This is the first MIRIODOR record not to blow me away in some manner. I was really surprised at how samey it is and when you do that for over 70 minutes your not going to win any brownie points with me. They're a four piece band at this point and this album features sax, synths, piano, violin and percussion throughout. A big drop in my opinion from their debut and what would follow. But hey it's MIRIODOR so there is lots to like as well.

"Regards" opens with piano, sax and drums mixing it up then it kicks in harder before 2 minutes. Great sound here. A calm 4 minutes in and some dissonant sax follows. It picks back up late. "Spiral" features piano and sax standing out the most. "Valence" is a change as we get a dark atmosphere until it picks up before 1 1/2 minutes. Love the sax after 2 minutes. "Suspicion" has an uplifting vibe early on. When the piano comes in after 3 minutes it reminds me of UNIVERS ZERO. Frogs end it. "Writing For Remi" is slow moving with sparse sounds. "Oriflamme" sounds really good and it gets a little crazy before 2 minutes. The intro is reprised late. "Nocturnal Processing" sounds good with the keys and sax. Beautiful stuff. "Middle Ages" ends it with some piano and sax with atmosphere. It does get intense before settling back.

A good album for sure and I didn't touch on every track just because I would be repeating myself a lot. 3.5 stars.

By the end of 1984 Miriodor, now reduced to a quartet without Denis Robitaille and Marc Petitclerc, left Quebec and moved to Montreal.They released a casette entitled ''Tot ou tard'', recorded in the fall of 1986, after which Francois Emond also quit.The now compressed trio of Pascal Globensky, Remi Leclerc and Sabin Hudon decided to move on, trying to take advantage of the modern technology and signing a contract with Cuneiform Records, finally recording a new album in January 1988 in Montreal.This was released the same year, simply entitled ''Miriodor'', propably to mark the new beginning of the shortened line-up.

While the debut of the band was close to a masterpiece, ''Miriodor'' seems to reflect the trio's hard times during the mid-80's, having lost a bit of the inspiration, still producing highly challenging and sometimes entertaining music.The abscence of additional musicians and the heavy use of modern technologies have made their sound quite cold and mechanical, while the album lacks the interesting melodic parts of ''Rencontres''.On the other hand the arrangements remain demanding with impressive, serious musical ideas, ranging from Lounge Jazz to complex R.I.O, full of dominant sax attacks and careful synth and piano parts.These allow the trio to scan the territory from dramatic and bombastic jazzy Progressive Rock to ethereal and minimalistic soundscapes with tons of changing moods.There are plenty of intersting orchestral parts, combined with sax- and violin-driven Avant-Prog climates, offering adventurous material all the way.

Some years later the album was reissued in CD format, containing also the tracks of the ''Tot ou tard'' cassette, more or less following the vein of the main album's component.I miss the masterful moments of Miriodor's debut, but this is still a very good album of cinamatic, orchestral and complex Progressive Rock.Recommended.