Untold Stories - 2025 - Wind and Memories

(53:07; Untold Stories)

What we have here is the debut album from a new Bulgarian band, but they have been put together by guitarist Daniel Eliseev-Marinovski who is best known for his band Daniel Eliseev Project and the albums ‘Night Shadow’ and ‘Lost Humanity, both of which I really enjoyed. However, they were quite different from each other as the debut was with vocals and songs while the second was more about instrumental workouts with Daniel very much to the fore, so in many respects this is a logical progression from the first D.E.P. release as opposed to the second, so I can understand why this is under a new name. Keyboard player Nikolay Samardjiev, who played on the debut, is back, but the other musicians are new with Alek Tsandev (bass) and Radoslav Mitev (drums and percussion) joining special guest, Boil Karaneychev (vocals). I’ve been looking at Boil’s Facebook page and he is a well-known musician and singer in the Bulgarian scene, but it would be great if he committed to this band full-time as his glorious accent free vocals are perfect for this style of polished melodic hard rock which has progressive overtones.

This is a true crossover act, blending commercial forms of hard rock and prog to make something which is incredibly accessible on first hearing and totally enjoyable. This is not music where the listener needs to think about what is going on but instead can just sit back and let the music wash over them. There may be some who feel this is too middle of the road, too over-produced and clean, but for me it makes a nice change from the music I often listen to which can be harsh and quite hard work to get through. I confess I could have done without the ballad “The Power of Forgiveness”, as the verse is just too slow and consequently sounds strained but there are plenty of more upbeat numbers which make up for it. Here we have a band who have much more in common with the Western music scene, and if someone was asked to say where they hailed from, I cannot believe they would have guessed Bulgaria. This album is easily available on Bandcamp so why not give it a try?  

Kev Rowland, July 2025

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/untoldstoriesbandbg