TOUCH THE MYSTERY

Some of the PA fans are sincere admirers of this album, while others have different points of view. This album obviously proves a well-known proverb: "as many heads ? as many wits". Being a journalist and reviewer at other musical editions and magazines, from time to time I visit PA to see new names and albums. This year PA helped me discover a number of very interesting albums and Touch the Mystery by Modern-Rock Ensemble was one of them. If not for PA it would otherwise be very difficult to find the first album of this Ukrainian group. Due to my occupation hundreds of albums go through my ears, but more often than not the first listening is, sorry to say, simply jumping through the songs. To continue with listening an album should attract me by its interesting sound, melodies, development of pieces, as well as vocals and lyrics.

First, this album simply intrigued me and made return to it once again to listen all through. By now I have listened to it 5 times and am now one of its followers. Even though it was quite a task to get used to the Vladimir's peculiar vocals, I liked his sincerity and emotion; it reminded me of love of my youth to Iron Butterfly and Steppentwolf. I liked a lot sound of the album which has something in common with "In the Court of the Crimson King". Along the whole album the sound combines transparency, but at the same time - deepness and power. I was also very impressed by professionalism of the musicians that Vladimir involved into his project ? now I see that we know very little not only about Ukraine, but also about its musicians.

The album proposes a lot of melodic and beautiful themes which are further developed and very interestingly performed by different instruments. It turned out that lyrics and emotions of Vladimir are very similar to those of mine. The style of the Modern-Rock Ensemble, which Vladimir describes as fusion of sympho-rock, jazz-rock and classical music, in my opinion is the most attractive facets of the album. I will not assert that everybody can or should like this album - it is not "easy listening". But from my side I would highly recommend anybody to listen to it.