BIRDS OF PASSAGE

Well it wouldn't be a new year without another album by this prolific band from Ukraine, that being Karfagen. However, since the 2023 albums are a continuation (or so I have heard) of their 2020 release of Birds of Passage, I thought to, instead of listening and reviewing the most recent endeavors of Antony Kalugin's passion project, I would instead review something that happened a little earlier.

Whilst many might consider this work to be somewhat of a prog by numbers ordeal, which isn't too surprising since a lot of retro prog is kinda like that, I think Karfagen does create a unique enough job to warrant some attention and love, with the band using their music less to tell a certain tale or message like other prog bands, but more as a drive for Antony's expansion of sound, which think gives this whole project a little extra charm, as from his past works to here, you can really tell how he improved throughout it all.

This album is essentially one big song, being split up into two 20+ minute movements, much like Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick or Frank Zappa's Lumpy Gravy, though there is also some bonus material too to work with.

For starters on this full coarse prog meal, the big epic of Birds of Passage is some high class prog rock fun. I personally love the first part the most, on how it builds, and how jovial it all is and remains throughout. I really love the synths on this track, they work really greatly with the guitars and drums. They kinda have this 80s neo prog energy to them sometimes, which I think works really well with what Antony is going for here. I also like the second part too, being a bit more calm, but still equally fun and bombastic from the first part, though I think the first part of this track has the stronger ending.

While I do not quite care for bonus tracks, I think Karfagen is a band where the bonus tracks are pretty indistinguishable from the full albums to where they are practically a part of the standard track listing. The tracks on here of Spring, Sunrise, and Birds Short Introduction are fine. I find the best out of these three to be Spring as I think it to be a pretty good and focused track all around, utilizing the sounds found on the two big songs into something a bit more bitesize. For the other two, I think Sunrise is alright, it is a fine kinda ambient track from all the progginess going on, but Birds Short Introduction is kinda unnecessary since you already listened to the two big epics that this intro is apart of, I just find it to be needless, though it isn't on the cd releases, which I think tells me more about that track than anything else. Either way, despite my thoughts on 2 / 3 of the tracks here, I think the bonus material is neat, and at times, really good.

I think that Birds of Passage achieves a great amount of stuff in the prog ring, though I think most would simply listen to the album for the big tracks and nothing more, but even then the big tracks on here make up a really great 40+ minutes of your time. I think if you like the more pastoral side of modern prog that groups like The Flower Kings and modern day Kaipa create, plus a bit of that cool and crisp energy of old school neo prog groups in the 80s had, I definitely suggest checking this out. This may not be the best Karfagen release, but if someone asked me what album they should check out first to get into Karfagen, I'd give them this.