Looking at the nice digipack of Vitalij Kuprij’s latest album Forward And Beyond made me pretty curious. The album looks nice, the added bio is simply impressive and the album features many well known musicians among whom George Bellas and Michael Harris (you can find reviews of their albums on our site). Vitalij Kuprij is a well respected piano player within the classical scene and has won several prizes for his compositions and his playing. The fact that this guy can play is beyond any doubt. Most of the time his incredible keyboard parts are so fast and so furious that it seems like the man forgets one mayor aspect of writing a good album: it needs good songs that are enjoyable to listen to.

Another thing that bothers me about this album is the enormous contrast between the keyboard parts and the rest of the instruments. Although most of the guest musicians do their absolute best to keep the keyboard parts of ‘madman’ Kuprij together; they hardly ever succeed. (The production of the album doesn’t help here either).

In my opinion this guy should stick to classical music and leaf the classical alternative rock far behind. The album might be interesting for keyboard players with a classical background or special interest; if you’re not one of those, you should forget about this album.