THE SECRET GARDEN

Arlekin's Secret Garden is a solid Neo-Prog offering. It is similar in tone to Genesis and Marrilion, etc. The album offers a sense of a journey and it that i feel it is well titled. It is a bit uneven with the first two songs, "Old Mother Europe" and "Night of the Two Knights" being ok, but not much better than that. The third track, "In Possession of the Moon" is better. And the final three tracks: "It Wouldn't Last", "Mirror of Shadows", and "Adult Responsibilities" are much better. "It Wouldn't Last" has a bit of 'jazziness" to it.

Skilled musicianship throughout with piano interludes as my favorite elements. Igor's vocals are imho the weakest part of the album. His voice has a 'strained' quality that detracts from the album to a small extent. I imagine it has the potential to grow on one with each subsequent listening.

This is written in March of 2022 and part of my reason for checking out Arlekin is the distress that so many of us are feeling with the circumstances in Ukraine.

Arlekin is the name of the project by Ukrainian multi-instrumentalist Igor Sydorenko, who brought in drummer Yuri Kononov while pianist Vadym Lazariev assists on two songs and flautist Eugene Manko on one. Igor sent this to me last year, long before the war started, and playing this now I can't help but wonder how he and his family are doing. Igor had been playing and writing music before he came across 'Script For A Jester's Tear' in 2003, which had a major impact on him, and he started putting demos out on various forums until he released the debut album, Disguise Serenades', in 2014. Since then, he has been busy with his other band, Stoned Jesus, but has now revisited those demos and reworked them to create the second album.

Igor is primarily a musician as opposed to singer, but his vocals work perfectly well in this more rock-oriented style of prog. He has captured that Eighties/early Nineties sound to a tee, with the naivety which comes with it, and I feel as if I have been transported back 30 years while he sometimes brings in keyboard sounds and styles which Mark Kelly was using 40 years ago. There are moments where there is simple beauty, such as on "In The Possession of the Moon" which is fragile and delicate, while "It Wouldn't Lost" is far more Simple Minds in approach. There is variety within the songs, which may be due to them being written at different times, and it truly never comes across as a mostly one-man project but very much of being a band.

I truly look forward to a time of peace when Igor can again devote himself to his music, but until then this is a solid slice of neo-prog to enjoy.