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Harmonium's second album is the album that is most highly rated by many progressive rock fans, including myself. Using the folk sensibilities and chord structures of their debut album as a starting point, Harmonium craft songs with the peaks-and-valleys structure characteristic of progressive rock. Having said that, the music builds up so gradually that ebb-and-flow is probably more evocative of the songs' development. It is the two longer songs that dictate the mood of this album for me. These are beautiful, languid pieces that combine strong melodies with attention to mood. It is not coincidental that both pieces make heavy use of mellotron, and are written in a sort of suite style in which distinct musical sections are joined sequentially, often with mellotron sections in between to hold the compositions together. The trick with such composition is to not make the medley of ideas sound contrived; in each song, the whole thing is pieced together so beautifully it all seems progress quite logically. The oddball of the album is "Dixie," the second track. As the name suggests, this piece is written in a Dixieland jazz style — the instrumentation is hardly Dixieland (soprano sax aside), but the energy of the style is spot on. In fact, "Dixie" is played with such a spirit of fun (or should that be joie de vivre) that I find myself really enjoying this track in spite of that nagging voice in my head that says "But dude, this is Dixieland." The album has a loose concept about five seasons. The title itself translates as "If we had need of a fifth season," while the liner notes attribute seasons to each of the tracks. The first four titles are Spring to Winter respectively, while "Histoires Sans Paroles" is the fifth season. There is also apparently a fair bit of Quebec separatist sentiment in the lyrics, but my French skills are sufficiently poor that I can only point to one or two obtuse allusions to Quebecois nationalism. No doubt it is blindingly obvious to native French speakers. Musically, this is a wonderful album. Beautifully performed by excellent musicians, aided by well-blended vocal harmonies and exquisite songwriting that gets both the details and the big picture right. I personally rate this album as my favourite progressive rock release from outside of Europe. In some ways, this is a transition album for Harmonium from folk to orchestrated progressive rock, but it's also where the band reached their artistic pinnacle for me. Certainly Si On avait Besoin d'une Cinquième Saison is a must have for anyone with an interest in progressive folk. review by Conrad Leviston — 6-2-08 —