L'ASCENSIONE

Roz Vitalis is the creative vehicle of Russian composer Ivan Rozmainsky, hailing from Saint Petersburg.He named his project after the latin express Ros Vitalis (''Living dew''), intentionally remaking it to Roz Vitalis after his surname.The project started in 2001 with the first few demos being one-man attempts, before a first CDR appears under the title ''L'ascensione'' in 2002.Here Rozmainsky collaborates with female keyboardist Nadezhda Regentova, male keyboardist Vladimir Polyakov with Vassily Raskov and Ekaterina Sophronova helping with vocal parts in a couple of tracks.

While compositionally the album shows a potential and a mood for creating innovative and challenging music, the recording process and quality prevent the listener from actually enjoying it.''L'ascensione'' is entirely built on keyboards, pianos and synthesizers, having evident Classical Music, Avant-Garde and Soundtrack influences, that produce a cinematic, haunting and impressive atmosphere, filled with dissonance and grandieur.However the drum programming and sound effects really sound childish and annoying, like created by a computer of the lowest technology.The abscence of any kind of melody does not help either, but on the other hand the music remains constantly atmospheric all the way with marching symphonic moments followed by minimalistic soundscapes.The vocals fit well with the album's atmosphere, delivered in a very dark way, either in wordless or simply singing parts.Still the length of the album combined with the lack of musical diversity make the listening one-dimensional and, as a result, quite monotonous.

''L'ascensione'' shouldn't be regarded as a great first step into the music bussiness for Roz Vitalis due to the low quality of the recording and the less than flexible style.Consider it as a work by an artist with potential and maybe you have a shot to enjoy it, especially if you are really into dark, Horror-like music.