Rock Company 2018
Russian progressive collective of two get possessed with assertive impetus to up their game and soar.
Challenge: this is what it’s all about. Without so much as quantum leap, “Inserter” doesn’t picks up where its predecessor "The Ocean Of Unspoken Words" left off, but starts on a different plateau, with the project’s mastermind Vitaly Kiselev concentrating on fretboard and his spiritual partner Alexander Malakhov handling synthesizers, to land on a different level in terms of musical magnetism. The duo moved forward by pursuing a dream, so the results are impressive.
There’s jubilant uplift to “The Flight Continues” whose many guitars weave folk pastorale into prog anticipation, and when insistent riff and heavy organ add momentum to the drive, cinematic interplay is sacrificed in favor of an even more celebratory sway. The little ensemble may inhabit a haunted vastness for “In The Old House” where vibes and ivories chase metal spirits away, but it’s only to usher them in “Keeper Of The Forest Castle” and unfold funereal march before allowing a lucid melody to shatter the gloom and shine.
Still, if “The World Of Light” is classically inclined and well-ordered, “Identification Man (Psychedelic Inserter)” or “One Strange Morning” will sound deliciously weird, with regular rhythmic shifts and overlapping tunes, and while “Fog” feels like arresting romantic shimmer, “The Saga Of The Discoverers” offers a space trip of epic proportions, even though the majestic piece’s three parts, brimful with quite emotional keyboards’ extravaganza and six-string structures, don’t cross a 10-minute mark. Yet it’s “Hello, Star Man!” that has the most wondrous adventure in the molten, and at the same time exquisite, interplay of all the instruments the duo used throughout the album, and it’s no coincidence that this welcome is the record’s finale: this is all about challenge – the future one now, a prospect of a truly great follow-up.
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