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Obiymy Doschu - Son CD (album) cover

SON

Obiymy Doschu

 

Crossover Prog

4.23 | 162 ratings

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octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
5 stars Regardless the actual war as of March 19th 2022, the idea of reviewing this excellent album has been in my mind since its release.

I want to spend few words about the title whose ethimology witnesses the common origin of many European peoples (Russians included). "Son" in Ukrainian means "dream". Well, in my mother language (Italian), "sonno" means sleep and "sogno", with gn spelled as ñ in Spanish, means "dream". Same roots for words in langauges distant thousand of miles.

Now the proper review: "The Last Moment" starts with a progression and a melody that initially reminded me to a Keith Emerson's solo song, but it's just the start. This is a symphonic track. If you have the ability of getting used to the vocals of Vladimir Agafonkin, tis song is full of things going on, with strong melodies, excellent production and great arrangements including also a metal-like distorted guitar near the end of the track.

"Wings" is opened by Agafonkin's acoustic guitar. The strings, a viola and two cellos give richness to the soundscape and Olga Skripova's backing vocals armonize very well with Agafonkin's baritonal voice. Almost all the songs of the album have strong melodies of the kind that you can recognize as familiar already at the second listen. This one, in particular, scores about 10 minutes but has so much going on as it was a sort of short epic. A remarkable electric guitar riff is in the middle, followed by an acoustic guitar and flute duo followed by cello. Progressively tasteful.

"Together" has a very simple 4 chords progression. When I was in a band, something similar was written by our guitarist and was actually my favorite band's song. So I personally like it, but it lacks some originality. Very melodic, indeed.

After so much melody a darker track is needed. The Dark River's intro rocks and can remind to Transatlantic. After the intro it's mainly acoustic guitar and voice for a sad melody based on minor chords. Boris Khodorkovskiy's flute takes the lead with a very melodic interlude. At the end it's a perfect sad song that scores about 11 minutes so it can be filled by many instrumental parts giving room to guitar, strings and so on.

Minor chords again for "Facing The Silence". Yevhen Dubovyk's keayboards leave the background. It's the first instrumental track of the album, but the album flows so seamlessly that I've taken a while to realize that Agafonkin doesn't sing on it.

On "The Room" Olga's vocal harmonies are back. It's quite a pop song but it's also one of the most enjoyable of the album. I can't say if it's the best, but it's the kind of song that one can spin twice in a row because one time is not enough. A flute solo in a Jimmy Hastings style is a very good addition to it.

"Interlude" is just a one minute instrumental with a cinematic mood. Good for a movie soundtrack. It could have been extended, but its purpose is to introduce the title track so it can be considered part of that.

"Dream" is again a minor chords song whose sadness is increased by the violin solo. Agafonkin's voice sounds dramatic. Anyway, despite the high use of classical instruments it's a rock track. On the short guitar solo, Aleksy Katruk sounds like Piotr Grudzinski.

Then it comes a sweet melancholic song. I don't know the lyrics, but in these days its title adds a special meaning: "My Dear Land". It has been released in 2017, I don't know if there's any reference to the Crimea thing, but I can imagine an Ukrainian volunteer holding a gun in a devastated city.

I hope that the band can be prophetic as the following track is "A New Beginning". Hopefully a good one. Percussion and sax like in a newage instrumental, lightly melancholic but with more major chords. It transmits more positive feelings, in particular due to the sax. I remember having thought that the electric guitar couldn't have had a sound different from the one used here. After the guitar string and piano play an interlude and the clean guitar is back with a lot of reverb. A very nice instrumental.

It was a dream, by the way, so the closer track "Angel" is again newagey and sounds like waking up in a sunny day. Olga Skripova is the lead singer in this song, with Agafonkin backing her.

What to say? I'm possibly conditioned by the current situation, also because we don't even know if the band members, based in Kiev, are still alive, but I see that I'm not the first rating it with the maximum, and as I have written in the first line of this review, this album was in my mind long before the war.

Long life to your dear land.

octopus-4 | 5/5 |

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