Summary
Julius Dobos is a young composer from Hungary making his debut on the Periferic label which als ofeatures Solaris and After Crying. It is not his first album (the first was a Nokia only release).

The music
Overture is not surprisingly the first track. After some stormy winds and nice keyboards, the choir sets in. The music is wonderfully melodic and is based on grand sweeping gestures. I Was mostly reminded of Vangelis here, but the addition of a real orchestra and an actual choir does much to better the authenticity of the music. Often in this first track the music is very bombastic and filmic reminding me of Morricone in his better moments (The Mission is a good reference), but adding keyboards to the spectrum. The stormy winds also start the second track, the title track (two parts of this track are to follow later). The music opens quite classically and on a sad note. After this we get some softly playing sequencers, but the melody is played on a string instrument. Again, the music is incredibly melodic, but never too (for me that is) with powerful passages. Woodland is a more acoustic track: acoustic guitar, (pan) flute again in a very melodic setting maybe reminding some of Oldfield. The ciassical component is a bit less present, but also has its say towards the middle of the piece. In the acoustic parts the music sounds a bit like folk music, but it is never merry. The song is much less bombastic then the previous tracks, which is good for variety. The next track is the second part of the title track in which the vocals figure prominently. The keyboards also have something of TD now in their early eighties period with quite heavy percussion and choir vocals. Adventure is mid-tempo piece with a very strong theme reminding me of After Crying with strong accents in the ehm chorus? Melodic music with drive. The conclusion to the title track is a keyboardsaffair. The trakc consists of highpitched tones and is not so melodic. Oriental Voyage is a bit playful with of course some Asiatic influences. However, the ghost of Morricone is also not far off. A catchy track. Longest track is New Pangae which opens soothingly. The continuation is slightly in the folk style with vocals by Sebestyen and lots of flute while the conclusion also reminds me of the Western soundtracks of Morricone. It has that same spaceousness and air of sweeping gestures. The Last Millennium is a short powerful piece rather Oldfieldian in its guitar work. The closer Life features a recited poem and for the rest mostly piano althought some synths play around in the back. A somewhat sad track.

Conclusion
A perfect marriage between classical music and electronic music in the style of Vangelis. Much better in my opinion than what I've heard of the Greek in recent years. The combination of the two styles really works well on this album that should appeal to lovers of Vangelis, filmscores (Morricone) and possibly also classical composers of the more melodic variety (Dvorak), but, of course, also lovers of After Crying are invited to take a listen. However there is no rock on this album. It still comes highly recommended.

Jurriaan Hage