It happens that talented musicians live many kilometers away from you. And it so happens that they live in a neighboring city. Recently I found a very interesting solo project from Krasnodar (Southern Russia).
My Rating: 85/100
Before, I did not hear the band Shokran, where Dmitry was a guitarist. I don't know if it's right to give an assessment without listening to previous works. But one thing is obvious: dude has great talent. I noticed an interesting album even on cover art. My blog has a dark theme, so you will not notice it. But if you go to bandcamp official page, you'll notice that the cover blends in an interesting way with the page. Thus, it's given a hint that for author there are no borders. Yeah, a good album starts with interesting shades on cover.
Album can not be called very special, but this year it's the best instrumental album I've heard. Usually the most interesting albums can not be described with words. Kevin Lytle - the first one who made me think about how relative my assessments. And now I see a second person who shows about the same thing. All that I write in this entry is just a small part of what I experienced after I took off the headphones. When we say "instrumental progressive", then the word "similar" in this context sounds like a curse. Nevertheless, it reminds me solo project of Isao Fujita. And also there are some similarities with one of his projects - Cube-Ray. At least that's what I remembered.
Composer's work is excellent. Especially I liked the idea of dividing compositions into two parts. This is very noticeable in tracks 2 and 4. That is, the overall construction changes approximately in half of composition. This is not a trivial key change, but a change in overall composition pattern with the help of additional instruments and / or some turns.
Instrumental parts performed excellently. However, such projects have only two options - to play well or not to produce studio albums. But still it's worth noting that after word "djent" I expected an ordinary grinding "zeros" on seventh string for several notes on piano sampler in the style of late 7Years To Midnight. Yes, reality is harsh. But this album pleasantly surprised me - everything here is much more interesting. There is a high skill level. But here is not shredding in the style of Mike Batio, when virtuosity violates all reasonable limits. Here the performance is exactly what the artistic task requires. What else can you say about an excellent musician?
In the end, I wrote few words about this release. Not only because for Russia albums of this level are rare. Not only because at the world level this album looks impressive. Usually don't say anything about such albums - this is the main reason. Such albums are listened to and silently admired. However, you can see for yourself.
