Detailed Reviews [The Gourishankar - 2007 - "2nd Hands"]

Prolusion. THE GOURISHANKAR, a young progressive rock quartet from Russia, presents their first official CD, "2.nd Hands". It took four years for the musicians to make this recording: while being in their early twenties, all of them have a full-time job. The guys are still continuing to look for a label through which they could release their real debut album, "Close Grip", completed in 2003.

Analysis. The sole short cut on this 8-track album, Taste a Cake, features only piano and violin, but the beauty and the originality of this piece will be appreciated by anyone with a taste for chamber music. There are two more vocal-free tracks here, and since one of those is in a way the black sheep in this flock, I'll begin with it. Not counting a quasi-improvisational interplay between saxophone and piano somewhere in its middle, the 11-minute Syx is woven exclusively of symphonic fabrics, the music being energetically saturated without any 'big guns' used. In the tune's introductory section the violin provides a melodic line that nearly note-for-note repeats one of the substantial themes of one of the songs located below the imaginary equator of Kansas's "Leftoverture" (sorry I've just clean forgotten its title). Since the group could not resist the temptation to repeat the quote, the name of the American legend pursues me when I listen to all the other violin-driven moves there too, even though at the same time, I clearly realize those are free of any obvious influences. In any event, Syx is a progressive rock killer, a polymorphous composition whose almost constantly evolving arrangements, featuring plenty of unexpected turns and twists, always keep the listener's attention. Except for the said one, there are no borrowed themes to be found on the recording, and even though most of the other tracks reveal in places obvious marks of Dream Theater's influence, the band is nearly in every respect on a par with their mentors, meaning their compositional ambitions and technical skill alike. The remaining instrumental, Moon 7, has quite a few of its musical relatives here, and since it opens the CD, comes across as being in many ways determinative concerning the recording's overall sound. "Pushing the boundaries of classic Prog-Metal" could've been an appropriate epigraph to that track, since it's polychromatic on all levels, stylistically too. Apart from jazz-fusion-related ones, it features movements with Flamenco or Indian music in their basis, and those, while being definitely progressive in themselves, lie almost completely outside the prog-rock idiom. Besides, the quantity of purely symphonic arrangements here exceeds that of hard ones, and it is only when the band goes heavy that the music is reminiscent of Dream Theater, otherwise having no references. One way or another, the opening tune less frequently brings to mind the flagship of contemporary Prog-Metal than any of its two follow-ups, Endless Drama and Queer Forest, which is partly because these much more accurately follow the genre's canons, being additionally free of any exotic components, and partly due to Vlad Wihner's singing which instantly evokes the name of James LaBrie. Female singer Alla Izverskaya diversifies the vocal picture, but not too much, above all because she is very rarely allowed to sing alone. Nevertheless most of the instrumental arrangements are in both cases labyrinthine, regardless of whether or not there is singing concurrent. The extremely long concluding number, Marvelous Choice, first finds the group developing various types of atmospherically-transparent Symphonic Prog, which they do in a highly original way, at times imparting a light jazz flavor to the substance (via Vlad and Alla's joint vocalizations in particular), somewhat slowly yet unswervingly moving towards a climax, having reached it shortly after crossing the song's imaginary equator. During the next three minutes, the music is extremely intriguing, in the style of classic Dream Theater, but unfortunately, the epic's last quarter turns out to be overextended, drawing out quite conventional space music-like stuff throughout it. Unhurried from beginning to end, The Inexpressive Chagrin (whose mid-section stands out for its sax solo) and End are both the richest in vocals, and yet these aren't 'your typical' ballads, both being complicated in the truest meaning of the term. The former has certain common ground with Another Day from Dream Theater's "Images & Words" and is equally expressive, whilst the latter doesn't resemble anything else. The band's best achievement in the field of originality, this is generally an enjoyable tune, no matter that it deploys a drum machine and has a mixed, electronically symphonic sound.

Conclusion. These youngsters have created an album whose compositional refinement is as striking as the artfulness of its performers, all participants, the band members and guest musicians alike, appearing to be such virtuosi players that many of their more mature contemporaries would envy their technical filigree. While not a masterpiece, this is an excellent release which will be welcomed by a wide audience, though it is fans of Dream Theater-style music who should be the first to check it out.

VM=Vitaly Menshikov: July 18, 2007