It would appear that the concept album is not dead. That scourge of seventies rock makes a reappearance – perhaps reinvention is a better word given the dearth of such things in recent musical history – with “Ascension” from Russian band Oleg Gurtovoy and Vega.
Since this is an almost entirely instrumental album, it’s an awkward one to review as song titles are all that you get to go on barring the picture of the space shuttle on the cover and, to these ears, this album is a bit of an oddity. Sometimes it sounds like kind of music Jean Michel Jarre would produce if he went euro disco (“Liftoff To Infinity”) and wanted to fill dance floors in the biggest clubs in Prague or Helsinki. Only this clearly isn’t the consistent intention as “Moscow 21st Century” takes a stylistic right turn into the electronica of the last century. However, one of best things about this album is that it goes large at every opportunity and marches all over your critical sensibilities. Certainly, that is the case with “Taiga” with the wordless choir giving the song an almost outrageous pomposity that complements nicely the more reflective “Free Flight” and the Alan Parsons Project influences in “Jupiter”.
I have to say that I enjoyed this album more than I thought I would. Bombastic, pompous and ridiculously retro it might be but it is an album that is firing on all cylinders. It is truly one of those guilty pleasures that will do your musical credibility no good at all (so keep it to yourself…)