TRANSITIONS

First off, Transitions is definitely not a rock album, so it might easily not be the first choice of my fellow members here at progarchives.com. However as a progressive electronic music album, it is phenomenal.

As explained in the booklet, the twenty tracks follow the composer through his musical transitions chronologically, through eight years of his musical journey, up to the year of this release (2010). This means that you will find the best of both worlds, symphonic film music and progressive, melodic, intelligent electronic music from Julius Dobos here on one album. The album is filled with energy, great melodies, unique sounds and top-notch instrumentation throughout, regardless of the variances among the styles of the many tracks it features. From the big orchestral, very filmscore-like intro (The Comeback) through Fly Away (a track clearly evolved from his now classic "Mountain Flying", but with a modern instrumentation), to the ambient electronic titles towards the end of the disc (Microworld and Hymn to Progression), Transitions is an entertaining, stylistically very diverse yet coherent concept album, that has even higher level of details, both compositional and sound design, than what we were already used to hearing on earlier Julius Dobos albums.

Transitions is one of those albums that the more you listen to, the more you appreciate. Every listening session brings new details, nuances to your attention and leaves you wondering how you missed them the first time. I can therefore sincerely say that the album does really contain eight years of the life- and musical experiences of the composer.

On one interesting note, the evolution of music throughout the 20 tracks, following the composer's career, goes in a reversed stylistic direction than what we are used to seeing with the majority of artists: it *starts* with the more orchestral, filmscore-type of pieces (as Julius scored many movies and tv show at the time these pieces were written) travels through some surprising stylistic transitions (no pun intended), evolving into complex, ambient-electronic music that, as the composer has announced, will be the basis of his future works. A very interesting metamorphoses, as this is not your typical "former band artist goes orchestral" scenario. While according to Julius Dobos, his "not always enjoyable experiences with the industry part of the film- and music industry made [him] progress into the challenging new direction of purely original, complex electronic music", the diversity and quantity of ideas put into this one album give me the feeling that Transitions is only the very strong beginning of a new era.