I'M LIVING

"I'm Living" is the second album of Ego Eimi, which is the Russian one-man-band (by Alexander Skorobogatov) playing strange combination of progressive metal, folk rock, space rock, psychedelic rock etc. Music of the band is based on (electric and acoustic) guitars, male vocals in Russian (singing Christian lyrics), bayan (Russian kind of accordion) and programmed bass, drums and keyboards.

1. Transfiguration (5:57)

Song which "rocks". Prog with elements of "indie", active electric guitars and strong vocals.

2. I'm living (13:45)

The highlight of the album. The epic song with changing melodies, chords and moods. The "relaxing" pieces are followed by "aggressive" ones, and vice versa. The song has "psychedelic", "mystical" mood. Perhaps, the most exciting piece of this track is the final part which contains "tasteful" guitar solo, perhaps, reminding R. Blackmore and S. Howe

3. My heart waketh (5:30)

Ballad with acoustic guitars and bayan. The song is almost "folk-rock". It has good vocal melody and nice concluding electric guitar solo. Perhaps, the track may remind Jethro Tull folk-oriented songs.

4. Light of the unearthly day (5:03)

Roughly speaking, "Jethro Tull meets Metallica". But this "meeting" is very surprising, and this song is one of the best ones.

5. Night of Ukrainian steppes (8:00)

Again song with "heavy", even "thrash" guitars. Nevertheless, this song has very good vocal melody and is characterized by plenty of breaks and tempo changes

6. Elixirs (7:03)

Another ballad. Again a lot of acoustic guitars and vocals. And again nice electric guitar solo.

7. Underground earl Pt. III (4:29)

This song is more simple and "rock-oriented". Nevertheless, it is characterized by interesting combination of acoustic guitars and electronics. 8. The Great Friday (8:30)

The only purely instrumental track. It is about Christ Passions. Dark prog-metal reminding, however, Metallica and King Crimson. Electronic keyboards somewhere remind work of Jordan Rudess in "The Great Debate" from "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" by Dream Theater. Again a plenty of breaks and tempo changes. However, the track has not only "heavy" pieces. The middle part of the track includes very soft and nice episode played by guitar and bayan. As a whole, it is another highlight of the album.

Conclusion: a very good album containing original and nice music. The only disadvantage is the lo-fi production due to limited finances. The most quick way to know more about this music is to click at http://www.realmusic.ru/egoeimi

RECOMMENDED!

Ego Eimi is a word coming from ancient greek language and it means " I am" or " I exist". Alexander Skorobogatov is a russion multi instrumentist and the main ban of the band, or better said the only man of the band decided to borrow this name to his progressive metal band. Ego Eimi was founded in 1998 releasing so far 3 studio albums. I'm living is their second release from 2001 and is quite understadable a very unnoticed band and album. Not many listners know about this band, The music is in places intristing, taken influences from Dream Theater, some folk arrangements, psychedelic passages, a soup of subgenres of progressive rock melted in a good way. The main instrument that is more in front then others is the guitar of course played by Alexander Skorobogatov, some nice and intelligent passages on title track I'm living and aswell the longest tracks from here clocking around 14 min. The druming is ok, the all rest of the instrumentations are ok, many instrumantal passages are here, only here and there are some vocal parts sung in russian by the same Alexander Skorobogatov who is a mediocre vocalist widhout doubt. The main problem of this album is the production, to muddy and very lousy mixed, I mean like a garage band. We talking here about progressive rock and in particular progressive metal in this case, a genre where must sounds all instruments like crystal clear, each instruments must be very clear mixed and with proper studios. I'm not saying this is an unprofesional job, but must've bean much better if was done I don't know diffrent. So a pleasent album in vein of another great russian progressive metal band Azazello and Decadence, but this two band done a better job then Egoi Eimi in both production and ideas. With all that a 3 stars worth this album. A kinda forgotten and unnoticed band in prog metal circles.