Artist: Alkonost (Russia)
Album Title: Skazki Stranstvij (Tales of Wanderings)
Record Label: Sound Age Productions (Russia)
Released: 2013
Purchased From: CD-Russia (defunct?)
Before I start, I want to mention that this review is for the original, Russian-language version of this album, not the 2015 English-language version, which I don't have.
Alkonost has not been on an easy road since their 2010 album On the Wings of the Call. In 2010, many metal labels were looking to sign Russian folk metal bands in the wake of Arkona's success, and On the Wings of the Call, released on Germany's Einheit Produktionen, was poised to be Alkonost's breakthrough. However, that success apparently didn't materialize, and the band had problems both with their new record label and within the band itself. The lineup of the band, which was one of folk metal's few stable lineups, having been the same since 2004's Between the Worlds, fractured, first with the departure of a founding member, vocalist/bassist Alexey "Nightbird" Solovyov, and then with the mass exodus of vocalist Alena Pelevina, keyboardist Almira Fatkhullina, and drummer Anton Chepigin. Eventually (though after the recording of this album) guitarist Dmitriy Sokolov would also make his departure from the band, leaving founding member Andrey "Elk" Losev as not only the sole founding member of Alkonost but the only band member from their 2010 album that was still in the band. Ouch! Still, he pressed on, assembling a new (and frequently-changing) lineup of musicians, which recorded a new album in 2016.
But, anyway, back to the matter at hand: their 2013 album Skazki Stranstvij, recorded in the midst of the events that saw its "classic" lineup implode and a new lineup come in to finish the album. It would not be a surprise to anyone if the album turned out to be a complete mess, considering the circumstances under which it was recorded. After all, if you look at the credits of the album, you will find 8 musicians credited, including two bassist/vocalists, two lead female vocalists (Alena and new vocalist Kseniya Pobuzhanskaya), and a keyboardist and drummer who were no longer with the band by the time it was released.
However, surprisingly, it's not a mess. In fact, it's a pretty darn good album. Granted, I wouldn't include it among my very favorite Alkonost albums (Between the Worlds [English version], The Path We've Never Made, and the 2007 re-recording of Songs of the Eternal Oak are, for now, my favorites), but it manages to be a cohesive, well-written, well-produced record that does not betray the band discord lying beneath the surface. In fact, I think in particular the variety in vocal sounds between Alena and Kseniya (who were not in the band at the same time) is welcome. The songs are pretty catchy and interesting throughout the album's all-too-brief 41-minute running time. The guitars, still featuring the addicting dual leads of Elk and Dmitriy Sokolov, are as great as ever. Almira's keyboards are atmospheric as always, giving the album its layer of "Alkonost sound" that was so familiar for so many years. And though neither of the growling vocalists that appear on this album can hold a candle to Alex Nightbird, they are not bad by any means. All in all, it sounds like an Alkonost album. Considering the story behind it, that alone makes Skazki Stranstvij seem like an album that defied the odds.
Speaking of the atmospheric keyboards, the one strike I would actually give this album is the fact that its intro, which features only the keyboard, is too long. 4 minutes and 42 seconds of a 41 minute album is too much to take up with a keyboard intro, especially when another 4 minutes of the album are taken up with a cover song, which is closing track "The Eerie," a cover of the well-known Gods Tower song, which actually appears to feature vocals from Lesley Knife himself, unless it's someone who can do a really good Lesley Knife impersonation. I suspect that when a band asks Lesley if they can do a cover of a Gods Tower song, the first question he asks is, "May I sing on it?" because he also performed the lead vocals on Natural Spirit's cover of "Earth, Wind, Fire, and Blood."
If you take away the keyboard intro and the Gods Tower cover, you've got seven solid tracks and about 32 minutes of Alkonost goodness. It goes by a little too quickly, but the album is compulsively listenable so I find myself often putting it on repeat. It will likely be viewed as an album that shows a band in a state of transition before fully embarking into unknown waters. It's a mixture of the old and the new. But I think it also deserves to be seen as a pleasingly- and surprisingly- solid album by a band that pressed forward after disappointment and the trauma of a major lineup shakeup that many bands wouldn't have survived. Not their best, but, considering the circumstances, better than anyone could have possibly expected it to be. Another solid Alkonost album worth checking out.
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