Once this has been played it is easy to understand why it is rated on ProgArchives as one of the top albums from 2025 as it captures the proghead from the beginning and refuses to let go. Master composer and keyboard player/vocalist Anthony Kalugin has again used a host of guests to bring his concept to life, and utilising the vocal talents of Richard Sinclair on two songs is a masterstroke as he still sounds just like he did on ‘Breathless’ nearly 50 years ago. But he is not the only ‘name’ involved, as Michel St-Père (Mystery) is one of the guitarists, John Hackett is on flute, and other singers include Jean Pageau (Mystery), Bartosz Kossowicz (Collage, Quidam), Marco Glühmann (Sylvan) and Olha Rostovska who has been involved with Karfagen for years.
The result is a highly polished symphonic prog album with neo, and crossover influences divided into two parts of virtually equal length with six songs in the first and four in the second. There is a lightness throughout with no feeling of ego or self-contemplation. It is a prog album which is actually very easy to listen to, although never easy listening. The use of multiple singers does mean it has somewhat of a project feel to it, but musically all involved work closely together without any feeling of disconnect and while I cannot imagine many of the musicians actually worked in the same studio at the same time, it never comes across in that manner. There is some truly wonderful orchestration at times, with “Mirror of Souls” (which ends the first part) coming across as Camel crossed with classical and is simply beautiful.
Kalugin has a very high output with multiple projects, but his quality is just as high as his quantity, and this is a modern progressive album with deep roots which is a joy to hear.
