SENKI MADARA

Lyrics never sounded more real and with such depth and grace than with these because all the wisdom and beauty of the past centuries' Hungarian traditional heritage. Thanks to BART�K and KOD��LY so many beautiful traditional Hungarian songs were saved when they collected them in the first half of the past century.

Yesterdays broke a seven years long silence with Senki madara, with their recipe of Eastern European prog with obvious influences from YES, GENESIS, GRYPHON and GENTLE GIANT. Although they have used Hungarian folk songs, you shouldn't expect a too folk-like sound, it's symphonic prog with ancient melodies and moods.

For me it's more like their MOONLIT GARDEN album's intimacy but with a well thought instrumentation and better playing. Yesterdays took a huge step away from boring neo-prog clich�s and were turning back to the golden era of the seventies.

A few things stayed: virtuoso flute parts, beautiful acoustics, fretless bass (sometimes heavily distorted), wonderful female lead vocals (the best we've heard from Yesterdays, thanks to Stephanie Semeniuc), but there is also a new element: the implementation of cello and a string quartet which made me think of AFTER CRYING's beautiful first album (OVERGROUNG MUSIC). Although real strings are present all over "Senki madara", you shouldn't expect less signature Yesterdays MELLOTRONS, and it seems to me that more types of mellotron sounds were used: choirs, different types of strings and of course the flute sound (again, heavy THE BEATLES influences in track 6).

I won't go through all the songs, but I'd like to write about one of the best features of this album: the sound! It's clear to me now that YESTERDAYS tries to step away from the - so called - "loudness war", where the music gets squashed with compressors in order to get a louder result. They tried to make the mixes sound clear and dynamic. To be honest, it's the most dynamic/audiophile release I've heard in years. You'll can notice every little thing in the mix, and you should! This album sounds best in good headphones or in a high quality system. I recommend their high resolution 24/48 studio masters (also available for download).

With this album fans of symphonic prog will be very satisfied. Songs are sung all in Hungarian, which also adds a unique taste and honesty to the love shown for their musical heritage. Highly recommended!

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