Between his different projects, 'Antony Kalugin' continues his close releases of albums and, after the two releases in early 2024 of 'Messages from Afar' with 'Second Nature' and 'The Working Tapes' under the banner of 'Karfagen', here is his latest baby which was released at the end of May 2024. We are again under the charm of this symphonic progressive with long instrumental parts always inventive and refined. The streaming edition only has 7 tracks for 50 minutes of listening time but you can get either the standard CD edition with two additional compositions or the double CD edition which adds another 4 other tracks, 2 instrumentals and 4 songs in concert.
The title song welcomes us in a very beautiful way with a magnificent melody which gently caresses your senses and with a very beautiful vocal duet between 'Antony Kalugin' and 'Mariya Panasenko', then, 'Agora By Day' we offers the first long development which takes us into a progressive labyrinth in which it is good to get lost between sung parts showing 'Antony Kalugin' in top form and instrumental sections presenting numerous changes of intensity and tempo, the rhythm section provided by 'Viktor Syrotin' on drums and 'Konstantin Ionenko' on bass giving a beautiful demonstration throughout this flowing title. Follows 'My Shadow' which begins very calmly in a gentle part sung by 'Antony Kalugin' which gains momentum with the arrival of 'Mariya Panasenko' on a very beautiful melody and whose instrumental parts flirt with jazzy intonations, the final sung being beautiful, 'Mariya Panasenko' showing all her vocal talent. After the short pianistic instrumental 'Dios Pyros, Pt. 2' with contemporary sounds (for those who are looking, the first part is in the album 'Spektra' from 2016), the second long development 'Into the Kaleidoscope' develops nearly 12 minutes of epic symphonic progressive almost entirely instrumental, with some choirs accompanying in certain places the different melodious passages which move between different atmospheres, including this very beautiful saxophone solo at 4 minutes which then continues in inventive instrumental vagrancy which can recall in certain places 'Genesis'. Follows 'Journey to a Shrine' which continues this beautiful progressive journey with an atmospheric ballad on which beautiful guitar solos are embedded, the parallel this time with the 'Floyds' coming to mind many times in this nice title. It is with the short instrumental '2 Minutes Before the Dawn' that the streaming edition ends and which, as its name indicates, quietly takes us away from this beautiful album with some relaxing ambient music...
In summary, the impressive frequency of Antony Kalugin' releases is confirmed with this new album by 'Karfagen' and reassures us in the idea that the Ukrainian is absolutely not running out of steam and always maintains the same quality for progressive compositions with imaginative symphonic ambiances that we have, each time, an immense pleasure to discover and make this outstanding composer one of the best in this style of music... | |
