ROSES FOR A GENERAL

Excuse me, please, I must to write this: this album is very weak, maybe the notion "horrible" would be better. It probably should not been located at ProgArchives because it is completely not "progressive", but it really is on the list of ProgRelated sub-genre. I used the word "horrible" but You should not imagine any kind of noise, thrash-metal bluster or cacophony. Each fan of Progressive rock in each fragment of this album can easy foresee which harmonic phrase will be played in three minutes. Each note on the album is strictly predictable, each one track is sweet, trite and superficial, to a some level it is similar to modern pop-songs, like e.g Hannah Montana. When You imagine a simplified and secondary version of Vangelis, Kitaro and especially Jean-Michele Jarre productions from their weakest periods (but I must defend Mr Laza Ristovski - "Roses for a general" was recorded in 1984), however without their mellodic inventory, then You can understand my emotions. It is pretty to listen to but only as ambient during shopping or during waiting for a plane. All tracks are composed by Laza Ristovski and played by him on a keyboard. All keybord-bass lines and programmed drum lines are as primitive as possible, melodies are unoriginal and impossible to remember. I have never heard any other Author's albums, but I am sure, that they are much better. One and half star.

This is one of those albums showing all the perils and misconceptions of technological development in the early 1980s popular music. Vast amount of programmed electronic keyboards and drum machines, following the mechanical patterns and all-too-predictable melodic arrangements, was the best evidence of music being sacrificed for the sake of sounding sweet, pleasant and non-aggressive - the music once you play it you never pay any attention to it.

The spirit of the art of music is lost while the whole package sounds like a plastic toy designed to enchant the juvenile synthesizer-freaks. Take the worst of Jean Michel Jarre's electronic pop tunes and add pretty awful drum machines and cheap melodies and you'll get "Roses for a General". But to be honest, this album is still better than the preceding hit-and-miss called "Vojnicki dani". At least, the Hispanic-themed "Figueras" and the bluesy, Hammond-spiced "Old Places" can be listened now and then. But, that is hardly enough...

PERSONAL RATING: 1,5/5