NIGHT DREAMS & WISHES

I'm not very comfortable to talk about the prog rock music in the European Eastern countries in general. The main exceptions are Solaris, After Crying and Omega, and more recently, Riverside, Pandora Snail, Daniel Eliseev Project (D.E.P.) and Modern-Rock Ensemble. So, it's always with some expectations when I see that any new project has born in those countries. Thus, it was with a huge curiosity when I knew that a new project was being born in Ukraine in 2015. When I was contacted asking my opinion about that new project, I never hesitated to give my opinion and review it.

As happened with the debut album of Modern-Rock Ensemble, 'Touch The Mystery' I was again contacted by Vladimir Gorashenko in May 2018, asking my opinion about his then future project, an album that would be called 'Night Dreams & Wishes'. Sincerely, I never had the opportunity and time to check it and give him my opinion. I thought the album would probably be released in Christmas time of that year, as happened with his debut. But, it seems that I was wrong. Finally, it seems that his new baby was shown to the world. So, this is now the time to review 'Night Dreams & Wishes'.

As I wrote about his debut, Modern-Rock Ensemble is a musical project of Vladimir Gorashchenko, a composer, poet, keyboardist, guitar player and producer from Ukraine, who was almost unnamed in the Ukrainian scene. About the project's name, he comments that his musical style was strongly influenced by a great heritage of art- rock, jazz-rock, cosmic rock, symphonic rock and ethnic rock which he considers as essential parts of the modern rock music. But, Modern-Rock Ensemble also means that Vladimir wants to get a more complex ensemble or orchestral type of sound.

'Night Dreams & Wishes' is a completely differerent work from 'Touch The Mystery'. 'Touch The Mystery' is an album with only four studio tracks, two symphonic lengthy tracks and two acoustic and short tracks, plus a live influenced jazz track. With 'Night Dreams & Wishes' we have a completely different musical approach. 'Night Dreams & Wishes' is a conceptual album, a true tour-de-force, a much more complex album as usually happens with almost all conceptual albums. The album consists essentially in only one suite with almost eighty minutes lengh, almost instrumental, which is divided into multi-part sections with varied lengths, which are somehow linked with each other, as it should be on all conceptual albums, usually. But, Vladimir was right. At the first listenings it isn't that obvious that the parts of the suite are related. This is difficult and it isn't easy to see. The variations are so subtle that is hard really to catch them easily.

The concept is interesting and curious. It's about our dreams and wishes, the way that Vladimir thinks we must turn them real and not through away the opportunity to make them come true. As he said, we must wake up to real life and don't complaint about the cruelty of it. He chose an interesting character, a Gladiator, to fight and defeat the injustices that we can see all over the world. This isn't an originality. Triumvirat with 'Spartacus' did the same more than forty years ago. But, this is a very dear thing to Vladimir. We have already seen that on 'What Will Happen To My Country' of 'Touch The Mystery' about his country concerns, the Ukraine. But, here he has extended this to the world. Maybe Andrew Nazarenko is right. Maybe Vladimir has been a Gladiator in his entire life. Maybe Vladimir is really a dreamer.

Musically, 'Night Dreams & Wishes' is an ambitious and lengthy piece of music that can be described as Symphonic Progressive Rock, almost on its most classic prog style. As a conceptual album, the music doesn't just exist, it exists for a clear purpose and so we must listen to it in its entire identity. So, I'm not going to talk about the individual tracks since they're somehow related. Anyway, we can feel all over the piece, different moods and a myrial of diferent sounds, some more acoustic and relaxing and others more hard and aggressive, depending on the evolution of the story of the concept. However, as many of my colleagues did, I want to detach the lengthiest suite of the album, 'Dark Kingdom & The Evil King', the real highlight of the album. This is an amazing piece with an impressive myriad of different keyboard sounds, nice flute work that brings to my memory Jethro Tull and magnificent guitar passages that, at times, remind me one the most underrated guitarists, Allan Holdsworth. This is one of the best pieces I've listened in the last past years.

Conclusion: So, despite I already knew that this new work from Vladimir Gorashchenko would be a very different and a more challenging and ambitious work, than the previous one, I must confess that I was overwhelmed by this new one. Sincerely I didn't expect a work with this dimension, both in time and quality. I think nobody makes oeuvres like this, anymore. With this work, Vladimir shows that despite be a great keyboardist and a nice acoustic guitar player, he is an amazing composer too. The man could be easily a classical composer if he wanted. This is a great symphonic tour-de-force with a big touch of jazz/fusion. This is why I'm still thinking that this project would fit better in the Eclectic Prog sub-genre. But, maybe this is only me. So, since I think this is even better than his previous work, I'll give it 5 stars too.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Share this MODERN-ROCK ENSEMBLE review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to VianaProghead
• Report this review (#2281329)
• Buy MODERN-ROCK ENSEMBLE music online with PA partners
• Show all MODERN-ROCK ENSEMBLE MP3/Stream
• Go to MODERN-ROCK ENSEMBLE page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Night Dreams & Wishes page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for MODERN-ROCK ENSEMBLE related discussions