ROKUS TONALIS

Another one man & his keyboards band from Russia/Eastern Europe which sounds like a crossover between Camel, Ekseption and ELP.

I am not a big fan of this wave of nerds from Eastern Europe. But their second album, the follow up to this album, is a great album.

The mainman in Aviva, Mr Dimitri A. Loukianenko has a background from the metal scene before he quit and became a classical music trained tangent player/keyboardist. That shows on this album. Some of the music here is claustrophobic metallic and not too far away from zeuhl either. The music is pretty hard at times. The unnamed guitarist also adds some heavy guitars to the proceedings. The result is a pretty heavy, but still introvert album which really does not open up to the general public. This is hardcore classical music, played with rock instruments and with an metallic edge.

The music is good throughout. It does require a heck of a lot from the listener. I like the zeuhl like pieces here. But I feel most of this album is most definate classical music and not rock. This is a good album, but nothing more. I am not sold on Aviva by this album.

3 stars