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I came to Progarchives from RateYourMusic, where I saw a giant review by Gallifrey. I even managed to read it till the very end and what actually made me come here and read more about the band and then to and listen to the album on Bandcamp and then made me buy the first album is the fact that these kids from Russia have GAVIN HARRISON playing with them on the release that they are preparing right now! And i thought wow, if Gavin Harrison got interested then probably I should check them out. So I did.

And i was completely blown away by the first album. No wonder they are gaining popularity and no wonder you people on PA love them so much, and no wonder people have an unbearable desire to write more and more about that (and that leads to the 3000-words reviews like the one that I saw on RYM) and tell people about that. Because they definitely deserve this.

I looked up some information about the band and what amazed me is that they are only playing for 3 years and they haven't even graduated yet. The vocalist (oh this voice! I dream of it now) is 20 or so years old and the piano player is a bit older and still studying and he is a genius. You can rarely meet such an amazing musical performance as these kids have. Utterly magnificent. I've listened for about 400 releases for the past two years but I can't remember any musicians that create something as beautiful and pure that you can say that this is clearly music for the sake of music. For the sake of beauty. The melodies here is the center of everything. Vocal melodies. Melodies in the piano parts. Melodies in string arrangements. Even guitar riffs. And they all live together perfectly without interfering, which I find incredible.

Some songs, as a lot of reviewers mentioned before, are far from progressive rock ? they have clear classical music influence, but this is refreshing! Although some songs seem to be simple from the first glance, you listen carefully and realize that so many things are hidden beneath the surface! Take for example "Circles" or "Serenade" with those amazing backing vocals or "Weather changing" with its percussion or "i.b.too" and its string parts playing along with the guitar! I simply love the way how these musicians hide their intelligence without making their music too difficult to listen to. Marjana's angelic voice literally covers it all and presents it to you in a form that anyone would like and then you realize that it is much more than just sweet songs about sad world. Even the vocals have its double meaning. Singing about death in such a lovely manner is captivating.

The pianist Gleb also deserves a special word. I used to listen to classical music a lot (my parents teach in the musical school so I was forced to listen to it from my childhood and it really got to me) and I used to find it difficult to listen for a long time. Like, my concentration just crawled away after the first ten minutes. But here, the situation is drastically different. After you turn the album on and listen to the first two minutes with its multilayered vocals and then the piano starts playing ? you won't be able to stop listening until the album ends in 50 minutes. The piano and voice work so perfectly well it reminds me of Kate Bush and her last album. And each songs is like a different chapter of the same story that you want to listen to over and over again.

This is incredible. This album is a masterpiece and I urge everyone who comes across this review to go and have a listen (it is free on Bandcamp, but the band now seems to experience a lot of difficulties because of the second album recording being expensive so please help them if you like the music). No wonder Gavin Harrison decided to join the guys for the following album at least, and i hope so much they'll have a chance to play together.