sexta-feira, 1 de fevereiro de 2013

*. Velislav Ivanov (Велислав Иванов) .*

Album: Pogledot Na Szercatleya (2010)
Genre: Prog Rock (Crossover/Neo Prog)  /  Bulgaria

So this guy keeps bugging me: "When will you write that review" or: "Did you get to listen to it yet?" So after 6 months or so I thought, the least I can do is write something, give him the credit he deserves. I am a bit biased on this, though. First of all, I kind of know Velislav already, and even played something pretty awful on his first record, which I'd love to do again and better if I had the chance. But at the same time, I'm probably one of his biggest fans, so a nice review seems appropriate. It's interesting to hear how greatly this guy improves his sound year after year, though still keeping true to his own style. And it's amazing how much one person with the right equipment and great samples can do. This album, I guess is my favourite so far even though I find it a bit more and on-going and playful than the 2nd, a more melancholic album, which is usually what I like about his stuff. There's more guitar and drums, much less ambient sounds, at least on the first listen. This is the kind of stuff you pick up after a couple of rounds of listening. Which is great. In my opinion, this is the first album from Vel, that I'd call even progressive rock at times. At least neo-prog at it's best. There's a lot of organs playing and quick, clever time signature changes, some nice groove too with saxophone and jazz-piano (great development), but it seems he's in need of a lead guitarist and a lot of chorus on the box to play it through, a couple of the songs are screaming for a guitar solo à la Steve Rothery. The lack of a real instruments on this album really brings down the atmosphere a lot, which really is a shame considering the skill put into composing the music. The album, though being Finnish myself and not knowing what the lyrics are about (although he did explain the whole idea to me once), sounds well arranged, like a story that seems to go on with out unnecessary stops or jumps to and fro. It's like a bedtime story that you don't want to wait another day to hear the next chapter of. Every time I listen to this album, I take my time and go through it from the first to the last track because every song makes the one before even better. And that's saying a lot. I'd recommend everyone to give this one several listens to get what I mean. Vel's singing sounds great as ever, I liked his voice since the first time I heard it. The piano is really beautiful, especially on the fourth song together with what to me sounds like a clarinet. The composition is whole and mature, need I say more? If it weren't for the resources lacking from recording/playing, I'd gladly award this one full score, but it's going to be just 4 out of 5 from me because of some missing instruments (kinda my fault too, I guess). Review by "Passionist" (Prog Archives).

RATING:  7.75 / 10

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