THE SAGA

Ice is a dutch neo prog band with only one album in thier pockets named The saga from 2005. Ice is formed by members (who are veterans in this field) of another dutch band from late '90's Maryson who was disbanded after only two albums. Also the bass player Henny van Mourik besides Maryson he was a member of Cirkel (band from Holland who release a single album in 1983, The first goodbye). I was quite impressed by this album, the music is very fluent, very catchy in places, from mellow pieces to more up tempo, all is done very good and play from pleasure. All the musicians are great specially the keyboard player Ardie Westdijk , who done an excellent work here, he is also the producer of the album and the main song writter. The compositions are very varied with good vocals, wonderful guitarwork and a solid musicianship. All pieces stands as good, specialy the first three are excellent, opening track Strangelight, is a piece in good tradion neo prog , next the mellow and very smooth Farewell and the best piece from here in my opinion the instrumental masterpiece The Trail, one of the best instrumental pieces I ever heard from a neo prog band, superb musicianship, excellent guitar work and unmatch prestation of Ardie Westdijk on keys, wonderful piece and No Choice - the most uptempo track from here with a lots of great interplay between guitar and keys, great work made by the bass player Henny van Mourik, another goody that shows Ice was a promissing band in this genre. The saga deserve for sure 3 stars, maybe rounded up to 3.5 , but because this rate doesn't exist I remain to 3, a solid album, who needs a wider recognition because worth it. Album available on Musea records.