AVIVA (AVIVA OMNIBUS)

Keyboards take the prime and most prominent role as Dimitri's home instrument.

Most notable influences include ELP and neo-prog.

As the album progresses, it runs out of steam and becomes too generic. Another weakness of the album is lack of emotions, it is purely focused on precise execution and being pompous.

On his next album Nutracker In A Fury (2008) Dimitri changed the name into Aviva Omnibus and he is accompanied by two guitarists, a bassist/drummer and a second keyboard player who also plays violin.

The sound is similar to his debut-album but even more bombastic and spectacular and the compositions are more elaborate and balanced. I am absolutely delighted about the exciting propulsive rhythms with spectacular work on synthesizer and guitar like in the tracks Overture In Fury (lots of flowing shifting moods, a varied keyboard sound, fiery guitar and sensational synthesizer flights), Dance Of The Tea Giants (very dynamic interplay, sensational sounding keyboard runs and guitar riffs that alternates between prog metal and King Crimson in the Red-era, how propulsive!) and Coda Cold (swinging and propulsive rhythms, ELP-inspired keyboard work and a heavy guitar solo). The track Heavy March includes organ runs that are paying tribute to ELP's Nutrocker (based upon Tschaikovsky's Nutcracker) and exciting bombastic keyboard play and heavy guitar work, simply sensational!

Although it's obvious that Dimitri is inspired by Keith Emerson, he succeeds to sound original with his varied and modern souding keyboards and the use of many samples (like singing African people, steel drums and lots of voices). Some songs sound mellow like Flower Fever (sound collage) and Apotheosis (great final part with sumptuous classical orchestrations). But in general Aviva Omnibus their sound is bombastic with lots of exciting propulsive rhythms and spectacular work on keyboards and guitar.

What a thrill to listen to Nutcracker In A Fury, highly recommended, especially to the many aficionados of keyboard- driven progrock!

I am not a big fan of this wave of nerds from Eastern Europe. But their second album, the follow up to this album, is a great album.

The mainman in Aviva, Mr Dimitri A. Loukianenko has a background from the metal scene before he quit and became a classical music trained tangent player/keyboardist. That shows on this album. Some of the music here is claustrophobic metallic and not too far away from zeuhl either. The music is pretty hard at times. The unnamed guitarist also adds some heavy guitars to the proceedings. The result is a pretty heavy, but still introvert album which really does not open up to the general public. This is hardcore classical music, played with rock instruments and with an metallic edge.

The music is good throughout. It does require a heck of a lot from the listener. I like the zeuhl like pieces here. But I feel most of this album is most definate classical music and not rock. This is a good album, but nothing more. I am not sold on Aviva by this album.

3 stars

With only a slight help by a guitarist,all keyboards,bass and drum programming is responsibility of Lukianenko, and, listening to this work, this is quite an achievment.It is obvious that Lukanienko wanted to create a long yet modern work influenced by the likes of the far past composers.The dominant instruments are obviously synths and pianos along with the drum programming,but the album contains also plenty of voice and sound effects.So ''Rokus tonalis'' is an alternating beast between highly complex dramatic contemporary Classical/Rock Music and atmospheric passages close to Avant-Garde Music but also often with an almost Ambient feeling.Jazz elements are also present at some moments with a relaxing feeling.Melody is an unknown work for Lukianenko and the album could be a milestone in dissonant music.I admit the first couple of listenings were a hard experience,the more I heard to the album,the more it grew on me.Everything here changes in a blink of an eye,like some attractive harmonies which are constantly interrupted by the monster synths' attack.These ones are the main characteristic of this work,while the only thing I totally dislike are the pre-recorded voices throughout the listening.

''Rokus tonalis'' can be easily a love or hate album,it will be definitely not appreciated by fans of the softer and more melodic side of prog,but it will be a great addition for fans of highly complicated Progressive Rock and of course lovers of Classical Music.For me it is a very good album but only for specific moments,when I am looking for something trully challenging.Recommended.

Aviva is one of these bands with a nutty professor at the tangents. Or rather a massive talented musician who has got good training in the excellent Russian music environment. Russia probably has the best musicians training in the world and that shows. Well, at least in the symph prog genre. The name of the excellent musician and tangent player in Aviva is Dmitri A. Loukianenko. He may be or may not be a nutty professor though. If you read this, that is a compliment and not an insult.

The name of this album gave me impression that this was another "rock up a classic" album with minimum input from the band. My enthusiasm for this album from the outset was not present. I am glad, very glad to report that I was in for a huge surprise.

Yes, the play from Tchaikovsky get some decent feature during the forty minutes long album. But Aviva spins their own take or even own music around this world famous and much loved piece of music. Aviva's own music takes up 70 % of this album and they only returns to Nutcracker now and then as they use Nutcracker as the narrative, the story teller on this album. That certainly raised my eyebrows and made my sit up an take notice.

Aviva treats Nutcracker with due respect and I have nothing but praise for that. So let's move onto Aviva's own composed music. Let me point you to the name of the album. The album title Nutcracker in Fury describe the music here almost perfectly. The music is very heavy at times and Dream Theater is a good reference to some of the music here. There are also others more tender, pastoral themes and melody lines here too.

The end result is a great album with a lot of intricate details and melody lines. It is an album with a long longviety and life in my stereo rack. It is also the best Russian symph prog album I have ever heard too and that by some country miles. Aviva and Dmitri A. Loukianenko deserve a lot of credit and admiration for this great album. 4 stars

"Peer Gynt in Favour" is a production that appears to be a tribute to the late and great Edvard Grieg first and foremost. Themes and motifs from his Peer Gynt suite are explored in a distinctly electronic setting, ranging from tranquil new age to energetic and close to industrial in scope. Cold and synthetic material, but also vital and refreshing as long as you have a soft spot for electronic music made with a clinical contemporary sound. An estimated target crowd for this CD would be those who enjoy Vangelis just as much as Nine Inch Nails, and I'd guess that those with a soft spot for artists such as Isao Tomita might find this one enticing too.

Aviva is threading the same paths as Little Tragedies and Senmuth is walking down. This is not the type of walk in the wild I enjoy. The landscape is cold and desolate, draped in plastic and synthetic material. In short; the sound is anything but organic. And yes, this is a one man band from Russia. A country that has given our world a lot of fantastic big orchestral music and other fantastic art.

My big gripe with this album is the synthetic sound given the exceptional good Peer Gynt Suite. It kills the good in this piece of music. Yes, the Peer Gynt Suite is much molested by bands and keyboards fanatics alike. In particular, In The Hall Of The Mountain King. But Aviva has taken this molestation to another level. There are some good pieces of artistic creativity scattered around this album. But I would mostly say that this album is pretty bad. I also regard this type of music as muzak. That means music for airports and shopping malls. I am not impressed by this album at all.

2 stars

Combination of new elements with strong electronic feeling (but not like synthesized 80s), putting together melodic & disharmonic sounds, Peer Gynt in Favour (continuing pun tradition of naming as last album did, Nutcracker, which had "In Fury") actually shows some interesting interpretations of classical compositions of the original work. It's not electronic-ization of it, it's interpretation. I would say completely new, but it can never be true, so it's as "original" as possible, given the purpose.

Pleasant it is, no problem there. I think that more than Nutcracker, which had some rather disappointing moments. Not that there aren't these, but in general, it flows nicely.

4(-), just don't expect that it will be "normal" Symphonic, OK ? Lowered rating, because I suppose it may take some time to get what people here (some of them at least) call "acquired taste".

"Overture in Fury" is well played (for a classical-rock song). Maybe too much of electronic sounds, but I can get over it (first seconds for example), but I understand that it can be for better psychedelic atmosphere. "Heavy March" is also without bigger flaws, but it's quite sad for me, because I would rather see something less artificial, this kind of modern synths using, but something so big like this project doesn't exist. It's just 70s prog lover in me who wants it back. After these two tracks, main theme ends and gets here less known ones.

"Children of the Damned" starts as groovy track, in slow rhythm, with 3:07-3:27 done on modified voice and clear to see use of samples. This reminds me that this record is little bit oversampled, but as I said for many times, in the end it doesn't matter too much. "The Frozen Dolls Town" shots (amongst other things), at 3:42-3:58 beautiful example of synth strings. These high tones are well performed. But when I hear name "Dance of Tea Giants", I imagine something different, much softer and weaker (like tea) than this fury (fury as name of the album, of giants (as the name of the song). Are these sounds in the middle monkey screams ? Or is someone from band so creative that he done it himself ? Applaud, very playful song. Even in Porcupine Tree style, sometimes heavy, sometimes psychedelic, sometimes tender.

"Flower Fever" melody was my favourite as classical "Waltz of the Flowers", now it's remade into combination of electronic themed song, some parts sounds like they're combined with sounds of the tavern and then, something, are these strings ? Well, more like synths, but it sounds so faithful reproduction. "Coda Cold" leaves synths almost completely and enters more rockingly sounding music, which I welcome. In last third it again returns to take its toll. "Apotheosis" is something of calm outro, where we can think about wonderful musical (box) show we just heard.

4(+) stars for crazy (furious) Nutcracker.

Last week I found he had released "Nutcracker in Fury" so, bought the album and was impressed by the radical changes, in first place, the band's name is changed to AVIVA OMNIBUS, he's supported by Yurij Molodoy and Andrew Pruden in the guitars, Mamina on he bass and drums plus Vika who plays a second keyboard and violin.

But more important, his time Loukianenko forgets all the Emerson influences and presents a much more radical album which combines not only the well known Symphonic component,. but also a strong Heavy Prog element, Fusion and even traces of Avant.

But lets go directly to the album, which is opened with a weird introduction called "Sisoehtopa" that after 58 seconds of strange sounds leads to the surprising "Overture in Fury", that makes honor to it's name, because hardly anybody has reinterpreted TCHAIKOVSKY with such rage. The track starts very close to Heavy Metal and Avant, strong vibrant and full of dissonances that remind me clearly of FANTOMAS, the elaborate violin performance adds complexity to an already complex song, what a change from the formal Symphonic debut.

"Heavy March" is the strangest version of "Nutrocker" I have ever heard, being that from the well known chorus they jump to different conclusions as if selected randomly (well only the effect, because nothing is left to luck in the album), really spectacular, specially for the keyboard work.

"Children of the Damned" has more than evident Electronic touches, not really my cup of tea, but being as impartial as possible nobody can't deny the excellent arrangements done by Loukianenko. The vocals are pretty decent and sound well despite the distortion and..........some growls!!!!!

"The Frozen Doll's Town" starts as I expected all the album to sound, with a sober piano introduction that grows in intensity as more instruments keep joining, some sound effects add a bit of mystery and the usual dissonances collaborate with the complexity required not to break the atmosphere. Around the middle again AVIVA OMNIBUS gets closer to Prog Metal but jumps again into Electronic passages, seems Loukianenko and his band are trying experimenting, another good track.

"Dance of the Tea Giants" is even more contradictory, but by this point nothing surprises me anymore and this is good when you talk about a Prog album, the capacity to present something radically new is one of the bases of Prog, and this guys are able to do it perfectly.

The only thing missing is an acoustic track, and "Flower Fewer", provides it, most surely the strangest version of the "Waltz of the Flowers" I ever heard, with sound effects, shouts, conversations, but the soft atmosphere is respected despite all the strange things that happen in the background, breaks all my schemes, but that's also good.

"Coda Coda" is more Jazzy (Is there anything this guys don't include in this album?) and flows perfectly from start to end....well almost perfectly, because some radical changes and changes of style are really mind breaking.

When I read the name "Apotheosis", I expected a strong and vibrant closer, but no, this is the most calmed and softest track in the album...well at least until the band prepares the "grand finale" which makes honor to the name.

If I dared to say this an absolutely original album, many people would jump to the roof and ask how in hell can a new version of ·Nutcracker" could be original...Well, I suggest this people to listen i"Nutcracker in Fury", I'm sure they will be surprised, being that this album is absolutely different to anything you could expect. Something more dramatic if you heard the sober and formal debut, probably one of the most radical changes a band has tried from a debut to the second album.

Three stars for the music and one extra star for the unique sound and capacity to blend genres makes four solid stars.