Saturday, May 21, 2016

INTELLIGENT MUSIC PROJECT III: "Touching The Divine"

Rating: RRRR
Label: intelligent-music 2016
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

Intalli? Entilli? Antelli? Thank you! Mr. Smartass. It clearly reads Intelligent Music Project III on the disc. Bad news to all stoopid people out there, since you'd better look the other way for the next couple of hours (that's approx. the time it takes to read this sentence). Oh, c'mon. It's all fun and games. And just for the record. Yours truly, shall not be throwing stones at random targets, since we're bitterly under qualified. Never mind. Read on.

Soft-Rock and West Coast fans better pay extra attention here since this is excellent and challenging stuff from the vivid mind of Milen Vrabevski. Achoo? Who? Exactly. Thus why he's got the good sense of hiring TOTO vocalist Joseph Williams and John Payne (Asia) to handle all the lead vocals. Add to this studio musicians and recording Gods such as Tim Pierce (guitars), Natyhan East (bass), Simon Phillips (drums), and you're all set for a rocking good time. By the way. Milen is the Bulgarian producer, songwriter, author, businessman, philanthropist and patron of the arts.

This reminds me of so many different things and it's got several layers and colors of rock. Mature, diverse, theatrical, and from the opening notes of opener, "Opening", you know this is not going to be a bad experience. Joe Williams behind the mike and it's basically symphonic west coast stuff. Overall, the Kansas meet Queen meet Asia meet Toto influences are shining through like ray of light and your window. Arrangements and orchestrations are grand and beautiful. That's a proper orchestra by the way. 30 folks or so and not just a keyboard sound and effect or affect for that matter.

The project of Intelligent Music are not blatant copyist though and there's a great sense of depth to the songs. My hat off to Milen since this feature a lot of cleverly done structure and melodies.

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