ALIGN MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSE

The band's evolution is impressive. They began in mid 1990s with Moonsadness, a weak and faceless album which may be described as diluted early Fancyfluid and/or Notturno Concertante, or spoiled early Ezra Winston. In the new millennium, the artists found themselves and developed a very individual style, slightly grotesque, with pulsating rhythms in the vein of Galahad circa 2002-2012 and melody making technique not too far from Indisciplined Lucy. Now, with Align Myself To The Universe, they appear as true masters of prog - masters in both meanings, as high professionals and, on the other hand, prog landlords if you like. Indeed, something 'sovereign' may be heard in their new music, as if they felt responsible for what occurs in modern prog in general. While Round Midnight, Songs From The Lighthouse and especially Voyeur were first of all distinctive, original, individual - and written as only Moongarden can write music, Align Myself To The Universe is 'pan-progressive', written as if the musicians partially forgot about their personalities and acted as direct successors of Genesis and other protagonists. That's probably why they changed their creative manner from mostly distinctive (as in Voyeur) to mostly universal (as never before). But everything has a price: instead the artists refused to further develop some very interesting and perspective tendencies started with Voyeur, and as a result their music lost a part of its charm. So, I'd say Align Myself To The Universe is a great asset to any prog collection, but really essential still are only The Gates Of Omega (original version, not 'revisited'!) and of course Voyeur which remains the band's acme.