TAI BLIZKO DO SAMIA NEBOSVOD (Тъй близко до самия небосвод)

Velislav's sophomore effort maintains the dark and melancholic sound of his debut, as well as keeping a concept, notable because of the flawless flow from one song to the other, all connect wonderfully. This time however, Velislav does not repeat themes like in his first album. Anyway, once again Velislav plays all the instruments, with the exception of the guitar in track 5, which is played by Tuomas Renvall(aka The Passionist here in the forum), who had really planned to play guitar on all the tracks, but due to a problem in Tuomas' hard-drive, he couldn't send all the guitar parts unfortunately, this would have made a great duo work! As for the album:

The album features the already mentioned solid dark mood which is noticed through all the songs, in which they're experienced perfectly and smooth through a well-done production. Most of the songs develop a Van Der Graaf Generator(Godbluff era)/King Crimson(Islands era) style, mainly because of the somber ambience which is created by abundant mellotron, as well as some tenebrous synth notes and poetic vocal expressions. But Velislav unifies these roots with the classic Neo-Prog style, making all this melancholy be playful and enjoyable, as well as accessible, with nice guitar tones and synths, but never quite sounding like any of the Neo-Prog bands.

Overall, So Close to the Sky Itself is an excellent album and definitely an improvement over the more simple-headed, Under Dark Skies. By the way, if you listen to this album, make sure to listen to it with the lights turned off, it makes the album's atmosphere suit much better, and I think you can really perceive such tenebrous and melodic music with the lights turned off, or with no light of the day for that matter. In a rainy day might fit too.

4 stars.

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