Red Sand is the neo-progressive rock project of the Quebec guitarist Simon Caron: melodic, guitar-led, and built on long pieces. Across two decades and a shifting cast, Caron is the one constant, and the band’s sound has moved steadily from a Marillion model toward Pink Floyd.

The short version

Formed in the Quebec City area in the early 2000s, Red Sand released a debut, Mirror of Insanity, in 2004 and a steady run of albums since, broken by one long silence in the early 2010s. It is essentially a guitarist’s project with a rotating line-up rather than a fixed band, and its singers change from album to album. The songs are in English. The nine albums here are a large part of the catalogue but not quite the whole of it.

A guitarist’s project from Quebec

The band is built around Simon Caron, who writes the music, plays guitar and, increasingly over time, bass and keyboards as well. Red Sand is best understood as his project: the personnel around him turns over almost completely from record to record, and on the later albums he plays most of the instruments himself, with a singer and a drummer as the other fixed points. The drummer Perry Angelillo is the second most durable member, appearing across much of the catalogue. The band is French-Canadian, from the South Shore of Quebec City, and sings in English throughout.

From Marillion toward Pink Floyd

The one thing writers on the band agree on is the arc of its sound. The early records wear the influence of Marillion openly, and Caron’s guitar has been compared to Steve Rothery’s melodic, sustained style; over the later albums the band moves toward Pink Floyd, with slower, more spacious writing and a lead tone that invites the David Gilmour comparison. That drift, from one touchstone of melodic progressive rock to another, is the through-line of the catalogue, and it is the frame the band’s reviewers reach for.

If this is your scene, the books go deeper →

A revolving door of singers

The catalogue falls into two phases either side of a silence. The first runs from the 2004 debut through four albums to 2009; then the band goes quiet for roughly seven years. The second phase opens with 1759 in 2016 and runs steadily through the years after it, four more albums in under a decade. The two phases sound continuous — the same guitarist, the same long-form instincts — but the gap is real, and it is the natural dividing line in a catalogue that otherwise flows in one direction.

Two phases, split by a long silence

The singers are the moving part. Hëmel fronts the debut; Steff Dorval comes in for the two albums after it and returns for the whole second-phase run from 2016 to 2021; Mathieu Lessard sings one album in between, Music for Sharks, and no other; and Michel Renaud takes over from 2024. A different voice every few records is the norm for this band, and it is part of why it reads as one man’s project with guests rather than a group of equals.

Album by album

Nine studio albums between 2004 and 2025. Tap any title for its guide.

Who plays, and what is not here

A word on what is here and what is not. The grid above covers nine albums; the band has released more than that — other studio records and bonus-track and video releases sit outside this selection — so this is a large part of the catalogue rather than the complete discography. The records have come out on the band’s own SPBN Music and on small labels, with later vinyl through a Polish independent. No chart placing, sales figure or certification is documented for any of them.

Where to start

Start with Mirror of Insanity (2004), the debut and still the best-regarded record, and the clearest example of the band’s Marillion-leaning early sound. Then, for the Pink Floyd-shaded later manner, Crush the Seed (2020) and The Sound of the Seventh Bell (2021) are the strongest of the second phase. Approach the newest records once you know the band, and do not mistake The Sound of Silence for a covers album.

Why they still matter

Red Sand matter as one of the more prolific and consistent neo-progressive bands to come out of Quebec, and as a clean example of a guitarist’s project sustained across two decades on its own terms. The band has never troubled a chart or a mainstream press, and has kept making ambitious, long-form melodic progressive rock regardless — the kind of self-sufficient, self-released career the genre runs on. For listeners who want the melodic, guitar-led end of neo-prog, the catalogue is deep, steady and easy to get lost in.

Browse the bookshelf in the footer →