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Sep
19
2008
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Eternal Wanderers “The Doors To A Parallel World” 2007 |
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Written by Soen S. Mojo
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Friday, 19 September 2008 |
In the effort to observe the development of progressive rock in Russia, the presence of Elena Kanevskaya became highly important. After reading some resumes of her career, instantly I liken her to a smart bluestocking. As can be seen in the records, a few her works included in some sci-fi compilations, such as Music For Brain, Electracoustic Music, etc. At that time her so-called keeness on the impact of hectic perestroika, concealing endless psycho-clashes among personal urges, traditional norms and political hypocrisies. The thought of the problems of her music practice and the endless hypo caused she took a long way in searching for utopia. Then, together with her sister Tatyana Kanevskaya as guitarist and accompanied by Sergey Rogulya on drum, Dmitri Shtatnov on bass and Dmitri Drogunov on flute and recorder, in the name of Eternal Wanderers they set out on a journey. In the end, all of these were left untouched and replaced instead by expression in music works.
 “How long I’d been facing the dark”, said Elena on (track-1) as is expressed her restless. On hearing the opening bars of this track one immediately thinks of Annie Lennox’s voice that echoes through the outer space. Still and all, Elena was a bold adventurer in improvisation with her cured and fluctuated voices. Intervened by noisy guitar riffs, moody synths solos that recall Manfred Mann, followed by disquieting key’s broken chord and mellotron choir, this opening became a point of voyage to searching enlightenment. The album title “The doors to a parallel world” played as instrumental part on (track-2). Introduced with sound of jingle, music stranded illusion into the space with prominent guitar’s offers mixing influences of 80s Andy Latimer and Steve Hackett. They went to “Ride without end” on (track-3) hopefully. Led by ethereal metal sound Elena belted out a beautiful melisma in her gripping vocal, and as an accomplished keyboardist she bridged each modulation with sparkling Rick Wakeman inspired synths solo that interspersed with Steve Howe-like weeping guitar of Tatyana. “Too close to heaven” is the apogee of Elena’s imagination that is expressed on (track-4). It opened with astral traveling feel and sound of magic recorder, where the both recalled my mind of the soundtrack of TV serial ‘Avatar’. Seemed like in a trance Elena sung freely, in contralto, then spiraled and wailed with fantastic inflection to reached trangulity. The while, the band created an accompaniment like the opening section with metal sound slice. “No way back”. That’s the statement of them that well expressed on (track-5) as they made a progress of music. It’s full of aggressive guitar, piercing recorder, harmonic various keys and in up-tempo the music a bit reminds me of ELP’s Eruption. “Visions of the lost world” is a hallucination that is described musically on (track-6). The sound presented in this work has sobering twists and turns with spacey background and rhythmic textures of mellotron string that evoked memories of Camel in Pressure Point era. At least, they got “Revival” as is structured on (track-7). Therein, they unleashed deepest anxiety and restless, then reconstructed the idealism through invigorating, inspiring and stunning ending. It’s lush with spacey atmosphere, calm, floating and put in the patterned breaks to led plaintive female voice. The music flowed in voyage’s accompaniment and made a tricky interval, then built metronomic keyboard to shift time and tempo, created assertive and energetic music that will certainly attract plaudits from prog fans. Slowly thence left the atmospheric sounds that is cemented as a memorable thing. All in all here I have to emphasize that all the works of this album are complex, well arranged and well played. Fan of both the space rock and symphonic prog will find much to enjoy here. It’s a superb debut that is highly recommended. |
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