CONTINIUM

Ukraine-based band KARFAGEN is a somewhat personal bet of young composer/keyboardist Antony Kalugin,who founded this project in 1997 (at the age of 16!),being himself a student at school.Before the turn of the millenium he started writing material for the first KARFAGEN album and actually the band played a few gigs as well,before they were put on ice with Kalugin following a personal career,mostly composing and participating on new-age albums.By mid- 00's Antony had been a self-employed musician,so he gave birth to his former band and recorded the long-awaited KARFAGEN debut in 2005 on the Canadian Unicorn Records.

His work can be easily compared to these of MIKE OLDFIELD,GANDALF and CAMEL if you add some more passion and energy to the compositions.Having next to him his fellow keyboardist Sergei Kovalev,Kalugin explores and unites the paths of Symphonic Rock,New Age and Electronic in a very adventuruous and highly attractive package.Lots of spacey floating electronics dominate the album along with pianos and some great organ parts,which give the album a grandiose symphonic taste,while the succesful addition of limited parts with cellos,harmonica,flutes and bagpipes give the album a folkier and almost oriental touch in parts.Among those sometimes bombastic themes weird effects (water,birds etc.) are added in order to calm a bit down the dynamics.Electric guitars are much carefully used with a main aim to rise up the energy and nerve of the music between the keyboard-based parts,sometimes also in a jazzy mood.I could say that most of the tracks contain from even a bit to a higher range of Kalugin's classical training,especially on the piano parts...and one more thing:Do not expect the music to be overall sweet and atmospheric.In ''Continium'' KARFAGEN offer a fair amount of complex ELP-ish breaks to make it even more attractive and challenging.

The final taste is more than positive.Intricate,balanced,adventuruous and marvelously arranged,''Continium'' was worth waiting and Kalugin made no mistake on insisting on this band's future.An excellent addition to your collection,especially if you are a fan both of Symphonic and keyboard-driven Progressive Rock.