Roz Vitalis

The Russian band Roz Vitalis (from Saint Petersburg) exists since 2001 as a studio project, since 2005 as an electroacoustic chamber ensemble and since 2008 as a full-blown rock-band. Style of Roz Vitalis music can be described as the "Unclassifiable Branch of Prog Rock", Avant Prog, Sympho Prog, Instumental. The "metaphysical" goals of Roz Vitalis are "per musica ad lucem" and "to overcome chaos by means of making music". The main influences are Gentle Giant, Univers Zero, King Crimson, Le Orme, Yes.

“The Hidden Man of the Heart” is most ambitious, grandiose and high-flying opus of the band at the present moment. It consists of 14 tracks and lasts 63 minutes. Various keyboards, guitars, bass, drums, flute and trumpet are supplemented by exotic kinds of percussion, mandolin, bass clarinet and even string quartet! It is that this album extremely emphasizes strange combination of memorable/hooking melodies and sophisticated compositional structures with complex system of leitmotivs. Such combination of “familiarity and weirdness” is one of the trademarks of ROZ VITALIS.

“Quia Nesciunt Quid Faciunt” is the newest – 11th – full-length studio Roz Vitalis album – and 3rd album at Lizard Records – released five and a half years after the band's most famous release – 10th studio disc “The Hidden Man of the Heart” (2018). “Quia Nesciunt Quid Faciunt” (“they know not what they do” translated from Latin) consists of 10 tracks and lasts 54 minutes. The title of the album was induced by tragic events of the latest years concerned with military operations and violation of human rights in some regions of the world.

There are a few artists out there that, without trying to change the world, succeeded in accomodating the old recipes to the present day. In the domain of Progressive rock, The Flower Kings is the perfect example. Following a path not unsimilar to Spock's Beard's, the swedish band led by guitarist Roine Stolt achieved to leave its mark in the middle of the Nineties, accompanying the rebirth of Progressive rock. It remains on top of the genre nowadays. It is no surprise then if, after having paid tribute to most of the giants of the Golden Seventies, the artists of today tend to care about that second generation as well. That's how the Musea label and the Colossus fanzine created an album in four CDs, tailor-made for the excellency of The Flower Kings: "A Flower Full Of Stars - A Tribute To The Flower Kings".

The Musea label and the Finnish magazine Colossus endlessly continue their quest for the greatest universal themes, in order to complete their collection of concept-albums dedicated to Progressive rock. The hero of the day is Dante Alighieri, the famous medieval author from Firenze who wrote "The Divine Comedy". That's precisely this epic piece of work, without a doubt one of the greatest books of all times, that serves as the basis for this project. And of course, it has been divided in three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.
These Colossus projects are always a great way of getting to know dozens of prog acts all over the world and to hear how they are inspired by the literary source material and how they obey the producer's wish to sound like 70's prog. Italy is however much more represented than any other country, and it's understandable that often the same artists reappear on several projects. "Paradiso" could well be among the finest ones…

After having revisited Dante's "Divine Comedy" ala Progressive rock, Finnish fanzine Colossus and French label Musea dig deeper into Italian literature of the Renaissance with another classic: Giovanni Boccaccio's "Decameron". Many bands (Nexus, Phideaux, Daal, The Samurai of Prog, Jukka Kulju, Senogul and others) worked hard on that beutiful four-CDs album, worth listening.