DRAGON ISLAND

Antony Kalugin releases this companion piece to the original "Echoes From Within Dragon Island" which is titled "Dragon Island" and more appropriately sub-titled "Instrumental Symphonic Art Rock Suite". I won't go into a long, detailed review, you can read that in my original review of "Echoes From Within Dragon Island". One could argue 'why do such and album?' Has 'Antony just re-release the original album and removed the vocals?' No he hasn't. With "Echoes From Within Dragon Island", Antony put together a jigsaw puzzle, pulled it apart and then placed the pieces differently and it all still fit perfectly. "Dragon Island" is maybe more compact but it still provides a great rock album that is fluent, exciting, fun and passionate. This is a continuation I think of a favourite composition to me. Look at the last album by Transatlantic, "The Absolute Universe" in 2021. That now has four versions of which I love. The Abridged version, The Extended version, The Ultimate version which combines both the Abridged and Extended versions and then there is the live version. One can't get enough of wonderful music. I put this new Instrumental version on and it highlighted to me how good this is. The eloquent playing of Antony on keyboard in all forms of music and the seamless flow of his composition. The stunning virtuoso of guitarist Max Velychko makes the hair on my arms stand up every time. The track I really like is "Valley of the Kings" as it mainly centres on the main theme. The main theme is what draws you in instantly and encourages you to listen to the whole piece.

Truth is once I finished listening to this new album, it made me want to re-visit the "Echoes..." album. To me, this is now a three CD set. The music is still fresh, it is bright, it is fulfilling and an expressive, wonderful journey.