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Cyan - Echoes

Artist:	Cyan
Title:	Echoes
Label:	F2 Records 9909
Length(s):	55 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1999
Month of review:	03/2000

Line up

Rob Reed - all instruments on 1-8, vocal on 1-5, 9, guitar & keyboards on 9-10
Nigel Voyle - lead vocal on 6-8, 10
Christina Murphy - backing vocal on 7
Tim Robinson - drums on 9-10
Pete Hearley - bass on 9-10

Tracks

1)	Cyan	5.41
2)	Man Amongst Men	10.51 +
3)	Snowbound	4.41 +
4)	I Defy The Sun	4.20 +
5)	Nightflight	5.57 +
6)	Solitary Angel	4.20 -
7)	Tomorrow's Here Today	7.46 -
8)	Follow The Flow	3.06 -
9)	Charm The Snake	3.29
10)	Jimmy The Tank	5.19

+ : from For King And Country - : from Pictures From The Other Side

Try a sample of the album in MP3 or RealAudio

Summary

Cyan has already three albums to its name and now F2 comes with a collection of songs culled from the first two Cyan albums (on SI) that were not featured on the other compilation Remastered (which I do not know) and including three previously unreleased tracks.

The music

The first track is called Cyann which is a track from 1980 that was rerecorded for this collection. The music is rather typical progressive from the early eighties: lots of keyboards, poppy and notwithstanding the relative small contribution on guitar the music is in the style of early Pendragon, say Excalibur. Lots of different passages on this track, a bit too many in my opinion. Piano, organ, keys all types of keyboards are used. The music sounds a bit dated. Man Amongst Men is by far the longest track on this album. This track was earlier on For King And Country. I'm not that fond it, actually. There's some energy in the music, but I'm not fond of the vocals and the way it is sung. The music of Cyan in the older days was quite poppy, another example in case being Snowbound. The guitar parts of this track qre quite nice and the pianic accompaniment is also a nice addition. Again, the keyboards have that dated sound. In the booklet there's a reference to Genesis, but I hear nothing of that here. After a driven passage with somewhat orchestral keyboards, the soloing keyboards return. Some of the music sounds familiar in that Pendragon also made this kind of stuff. A nice track. I Defy The Sun is a vocal track and is a more accessible piece. The focus in this piece is the choral chorus. In the first tones of Nightflight I tend to recognize Marillions She Chameleon. After these tones the song picks up pace and we get some sharp guitarwork. The drums lack a bit in expression, probably because they are "automatic". Still, quite a nice track this. Solitary Angel is from Cyans second album. Now Nigel Voyle takes care of the vocals. He has a much stronger voice. The song opens rather soothingly and in fact this song is very much a ballad, melodic and a bit sad. The guitar solo has the vibrating sound of Oldfield. Tomorrow's Here Today is again an accessible track with female backing vocals. Are notable ingredients are the nice piano playing and the intermezzo with quite a lot of bass playing and the following spacey guitar solo. The melody played here sounds a bit familiar to me, but fact is the final part of this track is very good. Follow The Flow is again a ballad with piano. A bit of a melodramatic track. Charm The Snake is a bit of an odd track, somewhat in the style of Genesis. I'm not that fond of the chorus. The drumming is real now, which is good. Jimmy The Tank is again a rather atypical track after what we've heard up to now. The verses sound like a gangster movie, the chorus is quite poppy.

Conclusion

A collection similar to the two Pendragon compilations, both in idea and music. Compared to those, the music on this album comes out quite good and the sound quality is generally better as well. However, the earlier tracks do sound a bit dated. If you like Cyan and don't have the early albums, this one you should get since especially the songs from The Other Side are worthwhile. It is now hard to advice the newcomer to Cyan. I do not know the other studio albums by Cyan, so I have no idea whether these are better or worse than this one. For myself, I rate the leftover of the Creeping Vine session lower than the The Other Side tracks. But they probably weren't leftovers for nothing.