FOR THE LIGHT

The debut album from 'Rozmainsky & Mikhaylov Project' is very similar to their live album 'Adventures at the Babooinumfest 2017', which is to be expected, given the improvisational approach to songwriting used here. That said, I can quite easily say that I do like this more, as I find there to be less meandering that could occasionally be found from time to time on 'Adventures...'. Furthermore, I appreciate the more varied tone that the songs have, having both slightly dark sounding tracks full of cyclical rhythms, and much dreamier, relaxing pieces, all with a strong overtone of psychedelia woven through in a way reminiscent of Pink Floyd and King Crimson while still maintaining a fairly distinct sound. I also like the way different elements are introduced throughout the first few tracks in order to gradually introduce the listener to the larger scope of the album than what it may first seem.

The first 3 tracks show this perfectly, with 'Wounded by the Lack of Light' being predominantly guitar focused, while 'Keep No Thou Silence' contains elements such as a piano, along with a much greater focus on synths and keyboards. 'A Dedication To The Floydian Sun' then further introduces elements by having a large focus on the clarinet and bass clarinet. After this, 'Create in Me A Clean Heart' combines these elements and then draws attention to the rhythm, with a near hypnotic beat. I also really enjoy the neoclassical edge the song has to it with the keyboard mimicking the sound of a harpsichord. While another reviewer already mentioned this, I do really like the touch of every song including the word "light" having this melodic motif, which gives the album a nice bit of character. While this is cool, I find the songs themselves to be a bit lacking, without anything other than the reprises to be particularly memorable. 'Delivered from the Snare of the Fowler' on the other hand manages to start straight off with a great fade in intro with one of the better guitar sections on the album, before morphing into more abstract music with a lot more focus on atmosphere. I enjoy this version of 'Coming of the Troubled Waters' a lot more than the version on 'Adventures...', with the section where there is very little instrumentation other than the keyboard to sound marvellous, with the way it slowly builds to include more rhythmic interplay while still ending it on a very pretty note to be great. Similarly to this, I really loved the various transitions in 'A Flower in the Smoke'. The album ends nicely with the long 'For the Light', with a darker sound very similar to what one could find in one of Kind Crimson's improvisational tracks before developing into a highly entertaining groove. This is easily my favourite track for the energy and the amount of ground it covers, all while still sounding perfectly enjoyable.

Overall, I do prefer this album to the live one by the same band, with a great deal of it being due to how much tighter written it is, with less extended jams that didn't feel as if they were going anywhere with them. I definitely found this album enjoyable, taking the often abstract nature of this particular kind of music, and giving it a lot of atmosphere along with never making it anything extremely challenging to listen to, instead being quite pleasant. Despite there being a couple of slight dips in quality, I also can comfortably say that there wasn't anything that I considered low quality on here, making it a consistently enjoyable album that I'd highly recommend.

Best songs: Create in Me a Clean Heart, Coming of the Troubled Waters, For The Light

Weakest songs: The Thing in the Light

Verdict: Despite the improvised jam style that the band seems to take on, the music is rather pleasant to listen to, without too much of anything to seriously challenge the listener, unless they aren't too keen on purely instrumental albums. Despite this, it is a highly enjoyable album that I highly recommend is listened to.