Review by Antonie Deelen for iO-Pages (translated from Dutch)

Ixion is the project of Jankees Braam, former bass player with Sangamo. In 2004 he released the concept album CryoGenesis and now there is his second CD. The formula is the same, again Braam calls upon a large number of guest musicians to transform his ideas to tangible concepts. Most of them also participated on CryoGenesis, so it is possible that some voices sound familiar.

Other things are new, like the heavier sound. In the opening song you are presented with the a sound that resembles prog-metal. The heavy part however changes fast into a more symphonic style, but it rears its head every now and again.

There is a lot of guitar work, that changes from heavy to super melodic and even acoustic guitar . Also the keyboard parts are nice. You can hear Synthesizer, Hammond and grand piano on a regular basis. Even Cello and Spinet add their presence to complete the picture.

So there is a lot of variation, just as you expect with Progressive Rock. That makes Talisman not very original, but none-the-less very beautiful! Especially Sea of Cortez sounds very pleasing. However this track also shows that the vocals are not the strongest point of this album.

Even apart from the fact that the singing is very gentle, there are hardly any songs that follow a grand melodic line, so you can not get them out of your head for the next days. Of course al this is not bad, but is doesn’t go anywhere beyond nice and beautiful. A bit more persuasion in the vocals could have lifted this album to a higher level.

Because of the female singers there is a resemblance with Magenta. It is to the people who like this British band that I would recommend this album. Because despite the criticism there is a chance that the absence of Christina is not a loss.  This album has more than enough to offer to entertain the average Prog-lover.