Here’s a challenge: You are an unknown musician, you’ve just recorded an album and want people to hear about it. What would you do? Andrey Dudkin decided to post his album of a forum. In this case a forum where I participated, the Pendragon forum. And as I am always interested in hearing new music, I contacted Andrey. He sent me a copy of his album, called Flashrange, which I listened to with great interest. Well, album may be a strong word. Given the fact it has only four songs on it and clocks just over 17 minutes, I’d rather call it an EP. It comes as a digipack, with great artwork. When I play the album (yes, I’ll call it an album…), some excellent song orientated and very melodic prog comes out of my speakers … really good music, that makes me hit the repeat button once the album is done. The base of Flashrange is Andrey and Alexey Dudkin, on keyboards and guitars. Together they wrote the songs. But let’s be honest…the main attention will go out to the guests on the album: John Mitchell (guitars + vocals, Arena, Frost*, Kino ), John Jowitt (bass, IQ, Neo) and Andy Edwards (drums, ex- IQ). In my opinion this is a line up where you can’t go wrong. And the result is there: Top notch music! Great guitars, solid rhythm section, with some funky bass lines. And very good vocals by Mr. Mitchell. All this with a nice keyboard sauce, just the way I like it, by Andrey Dudkin. Think of something in the vein of Jadis, maybe some Steve Thorne. Very nice and solid compositions that feel really good. Given the length of the album, I find it hard to say more about the songs. Quite frankly I say this album is a blind purchase. I think these guys can have a bright future if they write and record more songs of such high quality. ****+ Marcel Haster (edited by Astrid de Ronde) Where to buy? |
