After listening to Kaipa's "Keyholder", what I did some time ago, this album of the Swedish symphonic prog band appears to be tiresome and colourless. Of course, "Mindrevolutions" is interesting enough, but if I wouldn't listen to "Keyholder" before, I definetely wouldn't draw such a rapt attention to Kaipa. "Keyholder" has delighted me completely with its first cords, while "Mindrevolutions" is just not bad enough album that additionally requires a certain mood for comfortable listening. If you like symphonic prog already, I think you'll like this album. But if you unfamiliar to this style, "Mindrevolutions" is not a proper place to start with it. At least, listen to "Keyholder" at first. Reviewed by Igor Brynskich.

Adrian Belew is one of the most original guitarists I've ever listened to. He played with many famous musicians, such as David Bowie and King Crimson, but at that himself is still underrated and not such famous musician.

Last year Adrian started to record his solo albums seriously by releasing, although not of long duration, but valuable albums "Side One" and "Side Two". This year Adrian released the next album with a quite predictable title "Side Three". This album has a similar organization - it contains nine full value track on 35 minutes of total duration (and that's unusual in itself, if we would take an average duration of present-time music albums into account).

As regards to music, "Side Three" is a deserving continuation of the line, which, however, has its own identity. Only the last track "And" repeats an altered "Ampersand" version from "Side One". The rest of the album sound freshly enough, but at the same time each track is performed in Adrian's "firm" style. It's meaningless to describe the music - you'd better get this album and listen to it yourself. You won't be disappointed. Reviewed by Igor Brynskich.

Kevin Moore was a keyboardist for Dream Theater and one of the DT's founders. He has left the band in 1994 to begin a solo career, which, as he thought, was in contrary to what he made in Dream Theater. As I read before (don't exactly remember where), Kevin had plans to become a classical musician. I'm not sure that was true, but after all Kevin has initiated Chroma Key - a project with musical style stood far apart from both classical music and music of Dream Theater. Chroma Key became an attempt to make meditative progressive music with emphasis on synthesizers (of course, there is no even a trace of prog-metal here). How successful is the result? Despite the fact that "Graveyard Mountain Home" is rated relatively high by critics, I can't say I like it much. The music is quite original, but it's not of my taste. Maybe you'll like it more, who knows? Reviewed by Igor Brynskich.

"Octopus" is my first acquaintance with works of this excellent progressive rock band. I want to say that I've liked their extraordinary music just after listening to the title composition. So, "Octopus" is third Gentle Giant's studio work. Gentle Giant's music is influenced by symphonic classical music, jazz, medieval chants, and baroque chamber music, and as a whole it is possible to say that their music is similar to Yes, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull. Besides fairly standard rock instruments such as vocal, guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums, Gentle Giant added non-traditional for rock music cello, violin, vibraphone, trumpet, and sax. "Octopus" impressed me with fresh sound, rich composer imagination and, of course, singularity of the performance. I'm sure, this album will make a good impression on every connoisseur of progressive rock. Reviewed by Alexey Gusev.

This classical hard rock work was recorded in so far 1983. By that time Ronnie James Dio (frontman of the same-named band) had a rich music experience. He appeared on five classic studio albums (three with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and two with Black Sabbath) released in the late 70's and early 80's. "Holy diver" was debut album of Dio's solo project. It's possible to compare this album with examination: Dio should demonstrate his possibility to write good music without a guardianship of such rock monsters as Black Sabbath or Rainbow. And he has passed this examination with excellence: "Holy Diver" became classical hard rock album. Everybody who likes hard rock should have this album in the collection. Highly recommended. Reviewed by Alexey Gusev.

In a word, the debut album from the legendary industrial band Nine Inch Nails is excellent. It is totally kinked from start to finish. Trent Reznor calls attention to combination of different music genres and styles: synthetic voice, distorted guitar riffs and drum machine. "Pretty Hate Machine" is one of influences that have changed the 80's music into the 90's, and the 90's music into present-day one. If you never heard Nine Inch Nails before, I recommend you to start from this album, because "Pretty Hate Machine" entirely demonstrates music that Nine Inch Nails perform. Among my favorite tracks are "Head Like a Hole", "Terrible Lie" and "Something I Can Never Have". Reviewed by Alexey Gusev.