2ND HANDS

I bought this album because I heard a lot of rumours about this being a new Russian sensation. So that's intriguing of course, I like to check out new bands. I had to wait for it a while, everytime I went to the store it was sold out (another sign it had to be special). At last I had it and I can say this really is special. In the meantime progarchives had decided to catagorize it under eclectic prog and that's usually not my thing. I have a strong preference for neo, prog metal and also symphonic. Eclectic is usually a counterpart of these styles.

This must be an exception because besides it's interesting it also sounds quite nice. Special effect to me is the "steel" drum, appearing in most of the songs and is an important aspect of the sound. The compositions are also special. In eclectic it's often hard to find a strong melody (or is even absent at all) and that's why I don't like it. Gourishankar does give the song at least some recognizable melody though they are also using the dissonants (another eclectic element) regularly. But it's not disturbing to me, it will never be entirely my thing, I will not be buying too many eclectic albums in the future. Never mind, there is enough to be found in my favourite categories.

About the individual songs: my favourite tracks are Moon7 end ...End, really strong those two. The long one Marvellous choice was slightly disappointing to me. I most often favour the epics but I'm ambivalent about this one. Probably I expected more of it, it's not really bad or poor but ok. The rest is nice too so I give it 4 stars without hesitation.

Especially for those willing to try someting totally new.