СОЮЗ (SOYUZ) - KROK

Despite immense challenges, SOYUZ have delivered a career-defining album in KROK."Krok" means "step" in Belarusian - and for Alex Chumak and his band this word comes with a lot of meaning. It's the title and theme that ran throughout COIO3 (SOYUZ)'s fourth album, reflecting the journeys the band has navigated in recent years, having moved to Warsaw due to political unrest in their homeland of Belarus and the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

Embracing the uncertainty became both the inspiration and main lyrical theme for Alex Chumak, SOYUZ' composer and arranger, who also decided to go a step further and change the language in which he writes songs from Russian, which is used as lingua franca in many post-Soviet countries, to his native Belarusian.

The result is nine songs about dreams and outer space, ordinary miracles, things very close and very distant at the same time. Deeper and more melancholic than previous works, KROK is quintessentially SOYUZ, laced with hope, dreams and a celebration of life.

Given the difficulties with finding rehearsal and recording spaces in Warsaw and the departure of the drummer, Anton Nemahai, from the band, Chumak explored alternative options. He reached out to friend and fellow musical collaborator, Sessa, about the possibility of recording the new album in his recently finished studio in Sao Paulo, with Sessa and Biel Basile coming onboard as recording engineers.