When in 1994 the album Dunes was released, the then totally unknown Chance held only one well known name in its ranks, that of Now guitarist Vincent Fis. Six years later keyboard player Laurent Simonnet has finally released a follow up titled Escape To Horizon. Again it's an all instrumental jewel with this time a very distinguished role for Flower Kings guitarist Roine Stolt. In "Aquatic Friction" it's the alternation between electric and acoustic passages which extra underlines the atmosphere. During "Ilona," Simonnet tries to create a musical ode for his daughter and does this by integrating some baby sounds probably recorded in the nursery at Simonnet's house. From a musical perspective you could compare it with the softer side of XII Alfonso. After the release of the first album, Chance was blamed by the press of being too long-winded and in a way this is the case once again. There are plenty of interesting finds and themes but these are once again used for a much too long period of time to keep us interested throughout. By means of the guitar, "From Here To Infinity" leans towards fusion but ends up in the wonderful world of symphonic rock by means of the swirling synth sprints. A sad affair however is once again the use of drums "out of a box." This drum machine situation once again cuts all of the soul out of the otherwise interesting music. It's as if it's an omen from the real drummers in the world towards anyone preferring technique above human output. "The Dreaming Zone' again is a repetitive whole based on classical instrumentation and with a nice acoustic guitar as focal point. The next three songs have to be seen as one composition entitled "The Time Human Machine" with yet again loads of solos that keep the listener amused. In the end the song is somewhat similar to the later work of Pendragon. Escape To Horizon is a nice piece of home industry yet with the use of an external producer I'm convinced we'd have many more nice things to enjoy! Reviewed by: John 'Bo Bo' Bollenberg |
