Ukrainian artist Sergey RYBYTSKYY made his first foray into the world of recording artists, at least to my knowledge, in 2012. He released two full length albums then, both of them in digital format only as far as I know, and harvested a fair amount of praise for these productions. Late in April 2013 he contacted me and asked if I could write about a compilation he had planned for release later this year. “In Honor of My Beloved” was the stated name of this production, combining some old songs with some newly written material. An assignment I accepted, obviously.
Come September 2013 and this compilation have either been postponed, scrapped of just badly marketed, as I can’t find any traces of it in the usual nor some of the more unusual haunts for music lovers. Which means that this is a review of an album that may, or may not, be commercially available sometime in the future. And those reading about the artist and getting curious about his material will have to make do with his albums from 2012.
This compilation is probably best described as an EP length one, clocking in at just over 26 minutes, with two of the six songs taking up half the playtime. The two songs in question aren’t the most intriguing on the album either, the spirited runs of neo-classical soloing paired off with riffs, keyboards and (presumably) digitized strings on Song for Margo the most intriguing, while the melancholic, pleasant and gentler landscapes of Memories id nice enough music but without managing to inspire to any deeper emotional responses from me.
Of the four shorter songs two items stand out. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, with an very nice symphonic initial phase and a not quite as intriguing but still very good guitar based run as the alternating construction. But as far as experiences of a more magnificent nature is concerned, Nocturne is the composition I’ll select as the best one here. As impressive now as when I first encountered it on Rybytskyy’s 2012 album “In Labyrinths of the Soul”.
If you’re fond of neo-classical music in general and artists combining that with guitar soloing and riff constructions in particular Sergey Rybytskyy is an artist that merits an inspection. For classical orchestrated parts by way of keyboards just as much as for his more metal oriented excursions.
My rating: 73/100
