Band: The Gourishankar
Band Website: www.gourishankar.com
Label: Unicorn Digital
Label Website: www.unicorndigital.com
Release Date: 2007
I firmly believe that there is no other musical genre that incorporates so many diverse influences and styles as Progressive Rock. I was reminded of that upon listening to the new release called 2nd Hands from a Russian band called The Gourishankar. There is some great music here!
This four member outfit formed in 2002 and consists of Vlad MJ Whiner (vocals), Doran Usher (keyboards), Nomy Agranson (guitars, backing vocals) and Cat Heady (drums, loops). They have the help of Vladimir Rastorguev (violin, viola), Dmitry Ulyashev (sax, flute), Alla Izverskaya (backing vocals) all fleshing out the sound admirably and giving it a wide sonic diversity.
Now for the best part, the music of 2nd Hands is melodic, song-oriented symphonic progressive rock that displays a wider than usual range of influences and inspiration. You’ll hear everything from modernized interpretations of the ethnic sounds of the Ural’s to outright dance oriented sections. There are eight tracks in total clocking in at over one-hour and eleven minutes. The longest composition is eighteen minutes and the others are anywhere from six to eleven, so you see each of these pieces has the opportunity to display a tremendous amount of change and development. The first track “Moon7” (10:11) is an instrumental that runs the gamut from heavy crunchy guitar to some of the ethnic feels. While the second track “Endless Drama” (7:45) starts out with a powerful Eurobeat dance intro before shifting gears to focus on vocals and rapidly changing musical segments. In fact the music of The Gourishankar is constantly changing. They never seem to stay in one place for very long making the music a delight to listen to. But more than just changing the feel of the piece the manner in which they compose is such that they’ll be going in a certain musical direction, stop do something completely contradictory for a couple of measures and then carry with a new musical direction and yet for all it’s busy-ness, it isn’t jarring in any way. These guys have good handle on their instruments. When they want the sound can be soft and intimate as in “Taste a Cake” (1:47) or it can be huge and panoramic with many crescendos as in “Marvelous Choice” (18:16). One of my favorite tracks is the instrumental “Syx” (11:08) which starts with some beautiful classical violin and then moves into a more complex prog style but then just keeps changing and changing before developing a recurring theme on the violin that builds in grand intensity. This track more than the others displays a strong classical compositional sense.
The Gourishankar’s release 2nd Hands is worthy of much praise. This is a band that is both complex and yet very melodic. Most of the music is pretty up-tempo full of rich-sounding synthesizers, both digital and plenty of fat-analog sounds. There are parts that rock and parts displaying either a dance, jazz or classical feel, all tied together with a dynamic rhythm section. Their compositional style doesn’t remind me of anyone, making their sound quite unique. For all the reasons above I can heartily recommend The Gourishankar to symphonic prog fans everywhere.