THE MYSTERY OF THE COSMIC SORROW

This Russia band founded by two sisters (Kaneveskaya) is back with an ambitious 2 CD album on the story of the universe. This album begins with some space effect before going in the symphonic mode with some delicate guitars and a radical techno break that will become a trademark throughout this 90 minutes journey. The female of Elena Kaneyveskaya made their first appearance on "Methane Rain". We are treated with a big bass sound and a couple of guitar solos. "Gamma Waves has an addictive techno intro before going in many styles of music from the symphonic of Steve Hackett to the Jazz. "Silent World" has an impressive resurgence of the guitars in the middle after some quiet moments. "Valley Oblivion" is a more straightforward song in the style of Mostly Autumn. The second CD is more space and atmospheric. "Following a Neutrino's Flight" is electronic music Tangerine Dream style. As for the epic of 23 minutes "The End of the Satellite Age", it starts with some samples of classic music before getting back to some space and electronic music. There's a clear influence of Mick Oldfield guitar sound on this song. The first CD is more satisfying for me because it covers more ground in music styles, and there is enough good music to give to this more spins. 3.7 stars

A journey through space, neo, and even electronica telling the history of the universe, the new Eternal Wanderers record aims high, and ends up a cut above so many other spacey Bandcamp artists. Track after track showcases their stylistic mix that soothes and pushes onward, with beautiful vocals and strong bass. Electronics stick out brilliantly on the title track and "Gamma Waves", before forming the centre of the dizzying mash-up of rock, electronica, and orchestral that is "The End of The Satellite Age", this long album's defining epic. Using simple, oft tried ingredients to form something special, "The Mystery of The Cosmic Sorrow" is a calming and enjoyable piece of beauty.

This is the third album from this Russian group. Led by the sisters Elena and Tatyana Kanevskaya, the former doing lead vocals and keyboards and the latter guitars and backing vocals. The vocals are in English but this is a mostly instrumental album. Basically you could describe the music as being 'Neo-Prog' but there is so much more going on, specifically the large amount of electronica. This is a double album and is jam packed with diverse music. Disc One opens with "Message From Space" which is a spacey, electronic piece with some spoken word. The title track starts out more typical Neo with the soaring guitar and orchestral drumming. Settles into an easy going midpaced tempo with guitar and keyboards complimenting each other. Then it goes into an electronic beat with some nice guitar that goes well with it. In the middle is lots of traffic sounds as the music builds in intensity. Goes back to the beginning parts again.

"Methane Rain" has another spacey opening. This is the third track but is the first with actual singing. A midpaced symph rocker with some shred-like guitar soloing at one point. After a spacey/electronic interlude goes into faster paced symph rock territory. More soaring guitar and symphonic keys brings us back to the vocal section. Some saxophone soloing by a guest at the end. "Gamma Waves" features some aggressive sounding bass work which is in contrast to the lovely part that follows it. Really nice jazz guitar at one point. An almost Chinese sounding melody briefly. One of the more diverse and interesting tracks on the album. "Born To Suffer" is another vocal track. Almost noisy and avant-garde beginning. Then a more modern sounding Neo style. The longest track on Disc One. Over halfway gets jazzy with a funky synth solo, followed by a soaring symph rock style guitar solo.

Some news reports (in English) play as the guitar does some more shred-like soloing. Very prog metal ending. "Silent World" is a Neo/Symph track for the most part. I really like the instrumental section in the middle. Lots going on there. Now we move on to Disc Two, which features just three tracks but one of them is an epic over 23 minutes long. "Following A Neutrino's Flight" opens Disc Two with some moody and suspenseful electronica. Later a kind of slow paced groove with some spacey synth soloing. In the middle it switches to sequencers and vocals with a reverb/echo type of effect. "The End Of The Satellite Age" is the epic of the album, divided into five parts. Everything starts off very electronic with sequencers and string-synth. Gets very orchestral and symphonic but without an orchestra; all keyboards and guitars.

Stays symphonic but gets more electronic sounding. Later gets more traditionally orchestral sounding with some military style snare drum rolls. Halfway gets electronic with a funky yet menacing atmosphere. Continues in a orchestra-meets-techno kind of way with the music getting more uplifting and melodic. Lots to absorb on this album and it deserves repeated listens. The sound and production is superb. The only real complaint I would have is that the last track on both discs are also the two weakest tracks overall. Great prog for 2016 and this comes highly recommended to those who enjoy the more melodic side of modern prog, or Neo and Prog Metal fans who are not against electronica. I will give this 4 stars.

This album leaves me bewildered and baffled. That may com off as negative but it is, actually, meant in the most positive way. Rarely have I listened to an album with such width and content and found myself in awe afterwards. This is true, I should point out, in regards to the music they are playing. Now, there are quite a few genres here, ranging from metal and psychedelica to electronica and artistic soundscapes which leaves me sitting there, watching a sci-fi movie being played in my head. That, my fellow proggers, is amazing.

For the most part I can find myself a bit intimidated by the prospect of listening through double albums, such as this one. Will I actually be intrigued or will there be a lot of fillers in there? It would not be surprising if an album spanning two discs was filled with both brilliance and fillers. In this case it is not so. The double-disc whammy delivers in spades.

I started out listening to disc 2 and fell in love with "Following a neutrino's flight" right away. Spacey, elegant, foreboding and simply beutiful. The second track, "The end of the satellite age", is also the longest and filled with Amazing melodies on a computer game like keyboard, which is brilliant. It's like revisiting the golden age of computer games, circa 1985. This is the track that portrays images which are then transferred straight into my brain, allowing me to watch a sci-fi movie. This track never looses it's grip on me. It keeps on fascinating. "Space" concludes the album and couldn't have done so in any other fashion more apt.

Disc 1 holds seven tracks and they are great. Especially beautiful is "Valley of oblivion", which really has become somewhat of my favorite track. "Silent World" holds a great metal section with a blistering guitar solo and "Born to suffer" is somewhat Stone The Crows meets Hawkwind.

I feel that Eternal Wanderers have taken the best from Hawkwind and Tangerine Dream, transformed it and put forth a musical delight that is both Contemporary and timeless. I am in awe. I tell you. This is a slice of brilliance and I think that a lot of people really would enjoy this. Top notch stuff and I am eager to listen to their other albums after this one. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to hear this amazing album and now I'm out of super lative words.

"The Mystery Of The Cosmic Sorrow", the third album from Russian crossover prog band Eternal Wanderers in a few minutes returned me back to the time when I was much younger (and yes - the grass was greener). Bombastic tuneful songs with female vocals full of analog synths, long compositions combined of some very contrast parts without even try to connect them properly, ambitious double-CD format (for studio album)... It smells like eighties (not seventies though - lot of new age like arrangements and more-modern heavy guitars sound transfer the listener back to the time of later Camel and Caravan recordings).

It is not really easy to pin a genre tag to "The Mystery's..." music - eclectic mix of psychedelic rock, symphonic prog, electro-pop ( sometimes with note-by-note citation from extremely popular in 80s Latvian pop-electronics band Zodiaks), spacey new age effects, Pink Floydish guitar hordes, analog electronic effects (kind of popular on early stage of electronic music oscillators and generators) all in one used not at once, but in a form of sound miniatures,changing each other every few minutes.

On paper it probably looks like dangerous mix, but there are no even traces of chaos in band's music - somehow all this collection of (sometimes contrast) components are placed in order and sometimes balancing on the edge still sounds attractive.

That's true, no-one these days can be wondered by nice but obviously over-exploited tricks borrowed from rock golden funds but Eternal Wanderers doesn't sound as a cliche. Probably kind of aliens on modern days scene, they radiate idealistic positive optimism, they don't copy or pretend of "being prog-rockers". It looks they believe in what they are doing, and - what important as well - it looks they really enjoy playing their music.

Not the music for prog purists or those interested in innovations, this album is really enjoying listening for believers that time machine exists and bands like Caravan can make their grass look greener transferred right to nowadays.

Nikols, the enfant terrible of the russian prog scene, asked me to write a review about this very interesting band from Moscow, led by sisters Elena (keyboards, vocals) and Tatyana (guitars) Kanevskaya. Lately I was a bit too busy in my office to write often, but I decided to give it a shot since all the acts Nikols asked me to review were very good ones. And Eternal Wanderers is no exception. This ambition concept double album about the story of the universe is indeed a tripping album. Why this is labeled as "neo prog" here on PA, however, is beyond my comprehension: at least on this CD there´s absolutely nothing even close to what is commonly called neo prog as far as I am concerned. Eclectic prog or crossover prog would be a much more fitting category and would not mislead some people to what should be expected of their music.

For eclectic they are! The sound this band produces here is mostly is space rock/electronic/psychedelic prog with just about everything else thrown in: jazz, classical music, avant guard, movie soundtracks. krautrock, pop melodies, concrete music, sound effects, symphonic rock, blues, acoustic/heavy guitars, you name it! The ending results are really good, individually excellent, although this band does not seem to gel all the elements into building a unique and cohesive product overall. They come quite close, though. One thing that they do have to unite some of the tracks are Elena´s vocals: although this is mostly an instrumental album, she proves to have a strong, bluesy voice that is quite original and powerful, capable of holding any style and doing that quite well. On the other hand the band is absolutely great instrumentally: the group members handle all the swirling cornucopia of styles with apparent ease and the album never gets too chaotic or pointless like so many experimental bands do. Even at their most bold (like the 23 plus instrumental epic The End of The Satellite Age is a good example) Eternal Wonderers´s music has a discernible structure and never gets too far out, which is really good. And they know how to write great tunes.

Every time I head this CD I found some new textures and subtleties I had missed before: definitely this is a grower. The production is excellent. Vocals are in english. Tatyana´s guitar playing is a highlight, very tasteful. Do not get down by the long (3:50ms) boring intro Message From Space. The rest is pure gold.

In the end I must say I was mesmerized by The Mystery OI The Cosmic Sorrow: every track is a quite good on itself and although this album is not a very unified piece of work I cannot close my eyes (and ears) to their strong songwriting, the powerful performances and the sheer energy of Elena´s voice. If you want something refreshing and varied, this is for you!

Rating: 4 strong stars. A band to watch for!

Pleasant synth-founded prog with a spacey sci-fi kind of feel and message to it. I find myself reminded of PINK FLOYD and TANGERINE DREAM at it's spaciest as well as ALAN PARSONS PROJECT and LISA GERRARD and MARTHA AND THE MUFFINS/M + M (because of the similarities of voice of Elena Kanevskaya to M + M singer Martha JOHNSON and Ms. GERRARD [though not quite as strong]). But, then, I also hear 80s techno pop/disco (e.g., the "Funky Town" themes in 2. the title song) and too many Neo Prog cliches in many of the sounds and riffs used.

The music is competently crafted and performed yet something is seriously lacking in the sound engineering department as mixes, levels, effects, and the blending of the instruments and voices are very inconsistent and variable--even within individual songs. Plus, this being a concept album, the musical styles and instrumental sounds should, I think, have more continuity from song to song. The drums are very, very well performed and recorded, whereas some of the computer keyboards and synths feel outdated or not of top quality (or not filtered/treated adequately in the engineering department). At the same time I love the ambition, dreams and drive these musicians have and only look forward to the growth and improvements that they will doubtlessly show in the future. I do believe that the band's affinity for leading edge science and science fiction is serving them well and that deriving their inspiration from such should be continued. At 90 minutes in length, this is an amazingly ambitious project (which is one of the reasons it has taken me so long to review despite my having the music in my possession for over four months now.) With no offense directed at any single member of the band, I have to admit that I find that Disc 2 presents quite an improved and more seemlessly engineered set of songs/music.

CD1

1. "Message From Space" (3:50) opens the album with a lot of promise. (8.5/10)

2. "The Mystery Of The Cosmic Sorrow" (8:30) (7.5/10)

3. "Methane Rain" (8:18) (8.5/10)

4. "Gamma Waves" (5:30) (8.5/10)

5. "Born To Suffer" (10:09) full of cliches and poor sound choices. (7/10)

6. "Silent World" (8:50) (8/10)

7. "Valley Of Oblivion" (6:03) (8.5/10)

CD2

1. "Following A Neutrino's Flight" (9:29) a modern classic of Berlin School electronica. (10/10)

2. "The End Of The Satellite Age" (23:26) a masterfully conceived and rendered soundtrack score! The computer- produced 'orchestration' is realized to perfection! Amazing! Kudos, Dmitry! (and Tatyana). Even the wild and quirky middle section is fitting and interesting. I am glad, however, for the return to more of a MIKE OLDFIELD territory for the final five minutes. Brilliant song! (10/10) I. "Hard Times II. "The Great Dance III. "It Went The Wrong Way IV. "Brand New Program V. "Falling Down

3. "Space" (6:02) a fairly nice bluesy, Kate Bush-like tune with some great melodies, bass and sax play. (9/10)

An excellent addition to any prog lover's music collection--especially the second disc.

This album is my first introduction to the music of Eternal Wanderers, the Russian band led by sisters Elena (lead vocals, keyboards) and Tatyana Kanevskaya (guitars, backing vocals). I wandered over to their site and discovered that earlier this year they played a gig with another of my favourite Russian groups, Lost World Band, and I bet that would have been quite interesting as in many ways they are similar yet also very different indeed. What we have here is a double CD that has very much a science fiction feel to it, so much so that it reminded me less of Tangerine Dream (who have obviously been a major influence), than of Hibernal who in some ways is following a similar musical path. Apparently, the double CD set comes with a fully illustrated booklet (I only have a digital copy), and there is lots of information on the website (which thankfully can be turned to English by clicking on the Union flag) about each song, and what they are about: given that many are instrumental that is certainly a useful facet.

Given that two songs and more than twelve minutes have elapsed before Elena starts singing, it came something of a surprise to hear what a strong singer she is, more alto than soprano, and with plenty of power and emotion. For some strange reason these guys are listed on ProgArchives as neo prog, but they would much better fit within the Crossover genre, although I am sure that Eclectic would love to lay claim to them if they could. What I like so much about this album is that it is just so enjoyable from start to end, and the ninety minutes just flies by: it really is music to get lost inside. The keyboard sounds are all over the place, bringing in quite a few that would normally be at home more in electronic, while the guitars can be there just to provide some counter harmonies or leads, or to crunch out riffs in quite a metallic manner.

There are some amazing bands coming out of Russia at present, and Eternal Wanderers is one that every proghead should be looking out for.

Russian band ETERNAL WANDERERS were formed by Elena and Tatyana Kanevskaya in 1997. For a number of years they remained the only permanent members of the band, but at some point they solidified into a quartet of musicians that have remained the core of the band ever since. The band have three albums to their name so far. "The Mystery of the Cosmic Sorrow" is the most recent of these, and was released through Russian label MALS Records in 2016.

If you haven't come across this double CD by Eternal Wanderers yet, "The Mystery of the Cosmic Sorrow" is a production many should take a closer look at. It may not have the widest general appeal, but at least among those who tend to enjoy a band being expressively eclectic, this is a production that most certainly merits a spin or three. A captivating, and in some respects, unique album by a modern day progressive rock band.