LAZARUS

The creative period for Ivan Rozmainsky and his group continued in 2003 with the third studio work and second full-length album ''Lazarus'', named after the biblical figure of the same name.Again Natalia Agapova contributes vocals in one track, Ekaterina Sophronova returns behind the micrphone in another one and Sergey Laskin plays the guitar in the last 22-min. epic piece.The album came out only in CD-R format.

Once more Roz Vitalis' deeply irritating, cosmic and outlandish Avant-Garde soundscapes would be a hard task even for the mystified listeners of experimental music.The material on ''Lazarus'' is atonal, experimental and extremely complicated to the point it becomes completely forgettable.A mixture of Classical and Avant-Garde Music, Minimalism, Baroque-period sounds, Ethnic Music and Fusion with a questionable result, propelled by the everchanging keyboards and programming of Rozmainsky and his colleague Vladimir Polyakov.With the vast amount of the music coming out of the keyboards, this whole thing sounds as digital as it gets with Indian and Gregorian influences placed in the same piece, the drums sounding absolutely fake and the synthesizers evolving as too abstract and abnormal.I love those Classical takes on harsichord and piano and wish there was more of this style displayed in the album.To my ears this is not far from Experimental and Noise Music, plenty of sound effects, Electronic textures and Industrial vibes are completing a total mess without any certain direction.'' Leopard Hunt'' contains some pretty reasonable E.L.P. values and the long farewell suite, ''Becoming the poor-in-spirit'' is too extended not to contain some interesting symphonic and electronic themes, but the blending of ethnic touches with Classical Music are not that convincing.

Rozmainsky stated that this work got some airplay in national radio stations, but I wonder which track on the album could be a proper radio listening.Not an work I will return soon to.Dissonant, noisy, mechanical and heavily experimental.Pretty far from my tastes...1.5 stars.