Progressive Rock
ArtBeat Music · 15 September 2026
The record opens with “Blessed Is He That Considereth the Poor” (10:07) and closes with its title track (11:21): twenty-one and a half of its fifty-two minutes concentrated in the first piece and the last. In between sits the biggest change Compassionizer have ever made, and it is a voice.
Sabina Vostner, a Slovenian singer, takes the lead on nearly every track and adds ukulele. In a chamber avant-prog project that has so far stood on its instrumentation, the decision redistributes all the weight: Leonid Perevalov’s clarinets (bass and piccolo) and AndRey Stefinoff’s, Serghei Liubcenco’s guitar, bass, rubab and percussion, and Ivan Rozmainsky’s synths and samples all move into an accompanying role. The guests bring balalaika, theremin, trumpets and the Herberts Kolbe pipe organ played by Anna Nitsman.
“In Exchange for His Soul” comes in two parts, and the split is the detail that says most about how the album is assembled. Part one runs 9:19 and sits second; part two runs 3:11, is the shortest cut on the record and arrives fifth, with two pieces in between. A continuation that lasts a third of the first part and doesn’t follow it works as a reprise, and nothing in the record suggests another reading. The same imbalance repeats across the programme: “My Joy and Crown” (3:38) and that second part leave the centre of the album far lighter than its edges.
Compassionizer is the project Ivan Rozmainsky, composer and keyboardist of Roz Vitalis, named after one of his own band’s albums, the 2007 Compassionizer. Since 2020 it has released almost every year and always in late summer, with Caress of Compassion (2020), An Ambassador in Bonds (2021), Narrow is the Road (2022) and The Fellowship of the Mystery (2024) behind it, all on ArtBeat Music.
Seven tracks and fifty-two minutes, released on 15 September. Mixing and mastering are by Anatoly Nikulin.
Rating: 7.2/10
Text by Guillem Cardós