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Nuno
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Published on: 13 Nov 2002
Al-Bird is one of the members of X Religion, a band hailing from the “young” Central Asia country of Uzbekistan. In the progressive world sphere, this country is better known for hosting the famous site ProgressoR, a tremendous source for news, reviews and much about everything of interest relating to Prog. Well, Menshikov, the webmaster for ProgressoR is the bassist here and Vorobiov (also with X Religion) the drummer.
Despite this contribution from such distinctive performers, this album is really all about Al-Bird’s keyboard and guitar savvy. His great capacity to create soundscapes and atmospheres is immediately recognizable at first listen.
As some other projects in Progressive Rock, this album was set to be played while accompanied by a theatrical play. It is a concept musical journey through the biblical story of Sodom & Gomorra. But transporting that journey into the present and picturing it with very contemporary music.
The album has a multitude of styles and approaches, conjuring countless details and using very apart genres to build up the overall sound.
You can find, in sequenced acts, Spacey guitar soloing à lá Pink Floyd, dense Gothic
Atmospheres, Industrial “attacks” à lá Laibach, hypnotizing inorganic Trance rhythms, Symphonic passages, keyboard driven fireworks à lá ELP, Hard Prog, western instrumental pop, eerie and melodic New Age and so on…
The use of samples, both vocals and sounds, also provides a new vision and a new possibility to our beloved genre.
All this turns Sodom & Gomorra XXI the total opposite of dull and static, providing the listener with an ever changing flux of events in form of music.
Overall, this is a very, very good ride through a paraphernalia of different styles and that resumes the new tendencies of modern music with the classic elements that have been populating the progressive genre since it’s “birth”.
The trick here is that Al-Bird is able to introduce all these elements without resulting in a senseless amalgamation. The styles are well packed and distinctively separated in sections that, though continuous in the album, sound like logical steps and simply sound good together.
I vividly recommend this album to those who like to listen to the new and modern comfortably mixed with the “old” and classic.
This is really a progressive album that contra-balances many of the current releases that sound, often, regressive tributes to the early years of the genre.
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