Yurikud: Elusive Dream

Yurikud (Yury Kudryavcev) is a guitarist/composer from Latvia with a new album entitled Elusive Dream. He has released two previous albums, World Trip (2007) and Where Is Freedom (2009).

This is a one man effort as Yury supplies all guitars and programming making a solid instrumental guitar rock album although I cannot help but feel a backing band would have added that extra something that would have made Elusive Dream that much better. In particular the programmed drums would have benefitted from a 'real' drum sound to give the music more spontaneity and power. This is also a relatively short album by today's standards. With more time to develop his ideas and even let loose occasionally, this album would have been that much better. However, it is not all bad as Yury proves to be an excellent musician. His nimble fretwork and heavy rock riffs make all ten songs highly listenable and quite enjoyable. His riffs and solos are laden with some excellent melodies particularly the title track and "Restless Soul", with the former featuring sustained guitar notes adding more atmosphere and the latter boasting some slower riffs and great soloing proving that you don't have to be a speed demon to make enjoyable music.

Other highlights include the catchy "Dolphins" where again the emphasis is on melody and songwriting building emotion and atmosphere and "September", a song with more prominent keyboards. The melodic guitar fills and clean soloing make this one of the album's best tracks.

In conclusion, Elusive Dream is a solid effort and an album I will listen to again. There are no bad songs and he is an excellent musician. Yury is surely someone to watch for on the instrumental guitar rock scene and if he is able to further develop his ideas with a full band he has the capability to make an outstanding release.

Track Listing:
1. TV Zombies
2. Elusive Dream
3. Cockroaches
4. Summer's Gone
5. Dolphins
6. American Rebel
7. Restless Soul
8. Attack
9. Independence
10. September

Added: February 6th 2011
Reviewer: Jon Neudorf
Score:
Related Link: Artist's MySpace Page
Hits: 1944
Language: english

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