Yelena Popova. Voices From My Soul. /digi-pack/

Frankly speaking, one remembers about that this is a debut album on two occasions only. First – before one begins listening to it: with the feeling of cautious curiosity, because one does not yet know for sure what he/she should expect from the disc. Second – already after listening: with the feeling of pleasant surprise, because far not always a debut sounds so qualitatively, confidently as here. Olena Popova strikes with universality, it is difficult to define where she succeeds better – in energetic "hits" or in lyric, delicate ballads. Here she sounds with a bright flash, promises an explosion – and does not cheat, grants powerful emotional splashes. And in a minute – softly, almost in whisper lulls in cozy intonations, causes quiet tremor with her ability to breathe transparently in thick autumn colors... Olena Popova sings dimensionally, she sings consciously – and every pause matters, and not a single nuance is there by chance. It seems that here the issue was not simply creating a beautiful decoration: this album invites to a dialog, offers to listen attentively to arrangement details. In the end, quite a bit of wonderful masters were involved into its creation – Eric Marienthal, Apple Tea, Andriy Konadkov, musicians from Skhid-Side, Z-Band, Aby MC, Sergiy Ovsyannikov, Yuri Shepeta. Have they succeeded? Yes. Harmonious and – nothing superfluous.