Short Reviews [Intentions - 2017 - "Foreign Affairs"]

IINTENTIONS is a neo-progressive rock band hailing from Holland. They have been a going concern since 2003, but so far only with one full-length album to their name, "Place in Time", which appeared back in 2009. "Foreign Affairs" is their most recent production, an EP released in advance of their planned second album "Hitman". What I can recall from this band's debut album is that they explored a brand of progressive rock with fairly strong ties to mainstream pop-rock music, fairly gentle on the ears and the mind but without providing too many of the sophisticated features normally associated with progressive rock.On this occasion we're presented with three rather different tracks. The opening composition Once the Edge focuses on harder edged progressive rock with a neo-progressive touch, The Train opens as a straightforward AOR-type hard rock song that grows in complexity and impression as it develops, while concluding composition Changes is an aptly named affair that opens as a gentle pop-rock motif with a distinct balladic feel to it and concludes on a much darker and rather more complex note, with a slight nod to symphonic progressive rock along the way. Cinematic or ambient sequences are used in all the songs, and clever use of female backing vocals and spoken voices also add to the value of this creation as a whole. A promising EP for those with an interested in harder edged progressive rock of the kind that includes both sophisticated features and sequences with more of a broad general appeal. More new progressive rock than neo progressive rock, and possibly an EP that merits a description as a contemporary take on a harder edged and mainstream-oriented brand of progressive rock.