A little about everything.
Before we start talking about the album itself I'll tell a few things about my personal musical preferences. In contradiction to the common “rock with the mother milk” I have no classical rock education at all. I'm a musical orphan, raised on soviet stage performances and “best Italian songs”. Well, a little Beatles, and that's all – in our family there were no true music fans. This state of anti-musical decency was spoiled by the fact that I loved to sing. In my childhood I was trying to sing everything. Squeaking with Anna German (1), growling with Vladimir Vysotsky (2) (my mother was ridiculing me and laughing on me terribly, but after acquiring of some skills of “drive vocals”, I'm the one who laughs now, and, hopefully, I'm the last), singing in unison, in octave distance, singing on Martian language, when I didn't understand English, and so on. They didn't send me to learn how to sing. I don't want to complain, but boys-guitarists with almost flawless skills when they're only twenty and jazz singing girls with an exquisite ear for music at eighteen make me trembling in rage and desiring to kill. Just take it into account. You're warned.

After that there were bard songs, Russian rock, meaningless and ruthless, Siberian punk, grange, RHCP, SOAD… Then I suddenly understood that music is supposed to express feelings, not for ideology promotion. Now it probably sounds terribly complicated, but in my head there was some kind of shift, and I've thrown out all limits like “commercial vs. underground”. I figured out that an “underground” music can be commercial, as well as there is pop that will never be commercial.
A brief passion with black metal was replaced by a period of somewhat threatening calm. After that my current musical taste formed completely.
The music types I prefer now - progressive metal, oriental metal, neo classic metal, melodic death metal, mathcore… well, I think that now you understand the general direction. I'm listening to others less (or more) aggressive-pretentious “metals” too, and additionally consuming various ethnics, new age and other hippie's crap - with a great pleasure.
Top-10 in my playlist: Orphaned Land, The Human Abstract, Deva Premal, Dream Theater, Omnia, Michal Zelonek, Loreena MacKennit, Metallica (don't even dream, they're here!), Dark Lunacy (couldn't miss them, they're completely sick!), Iwrestledabearonce (and that's horrible, I know).
Now, after all the cognitive dissonances I've caused, I'll comfort you: I'm not trying to get closer to any of the aforementioned styles or mimic any of the bands listed above. More than that, most of the songs included in the first album were created long before my “metallic” formation, and in the pure technical point of view it complicates their interpolation, for example, into progressive.

About the sound and compositions.
The work on the album progressed slowly. Originally there was a demo of a few singles, then it was completed to the full length, after that a new song was suddenly added (I'll tell about it later). Five first singles are easily recognizable by quite fancy, but somewhat old-fashioned leader guitar sound. These earliest versions can be considered a first try, the sound there is softer, more accustomed, all together “resembles Epidemia” and generally causes mixed feelings, ranged from “it's my dear” to “I'm fed up with it”. I can't stop myself from mentioning the dialogue with the friend and partner Dimitry Kulikov, happened after another re-recording of reefs in the song “Line”: “The guitars are so shocking! Really hard stuff! An epic scope! It's like Metallica!” “Leave it, it's Aria (3) anyway”.
Then after a long break our aggregated talent started working on not-so-unambiguous songs, and, as a result of long torments, almost a reference “Phantom” and “My God Is Dead” were created. Dimitry decided to re-write the melody of “Moonstone” completely. There is too much jazz here for my taste, but with the background of catastrophic amount of reefs and over-simplicity of the original melodic moves I tend to think that the insertion of a good composition doesn't hurt.
Two songs of Karine are standing separately – they've decided somehow by themselves to stay within the limits of the unobtrusive Russian hard rock. However, there are quite a lot of their own specific thingies, which makes them a connecting link between the “earlier” and “later” materials of the album.
And finally – the “Matrix”. I've written it during an insane recording session in the March 2014 under indisputable impression of the album “All Is One» (Orphaned Land, 2013), originally it was re-worked into hellish djent, then it was nevertheless squashed into the limits of oriental metal, and was tucked into the album as a lesson and edification: I want to play something like this. Well, maybe almost like this. In short, “Matrix” is a start for the future, and, I hope, it is my way to the true style of Phoenix.

About the vocals
In order to sing this little album (especially some places which are on the first glance don't look too complicated), I had to reproduce the fine details of the performances of following:
Jetpacks Was Yes! (Spencer Sotelo, Periphery), It’s not you! (Lzzy Hale, Halestorm), Enough (David Draiman, Disturbed), To The Edge (Cristina Scabbia, Lacuna Coil), and in addition a few other songs which are not related to metal in any way.
And that's why, with all due respect to Diana Arbenina (4), as a poet and human being (the first reaction of not-too-sophisticated in the ways of music Russian listener when he hears a low-pitched woman's voice is “Oh! It's like Arbenina!”), I'm not considering myself a singer who is similar to her in any way ;) Just imagine Diana Sergeevna singing Periphery before breakfast… and it will become all clear to you. Although the achievements of Courtney LaPlante (Iwrestledabearonce) are too not attractive for me in any way: I will not growl. Just will not growl at all. The reason is that the harmony is coming first, and the style is the second, and the lyrics have to be clear (although, by Dimitri's opinion, the lyrics are not required at all).
Yes, I've already heard that in the refrains of “Line” the back vocals are sung by man. The same “man” sings the main theme in the “Matrix”. Although, naturally, not all back vocals are mine, but in this particular case...

About the Phoenix.
I think that we can summarize. One lady, who was too creative for her own good, crazy fan of classical poetry and extreme metal, decided to unite her addictions in some ridiculous way. She convinced a lot of people to participate in that. First, these people were very astonished. Then they had a good laugh on her. Then they worked hard. Well, you can see the result. “Line” album is a long attempt to find myself in the multidimensional space of styles and areas – in some places a little strange, in some of them not bad at all (by my own taste). And yes, I'll continue. Until the feeling of absolute success and satisfaction is achieved.
If you sometime in the future will say: “Aaa, Sapphire Phoenix, this strange girl who sings something complicated in Russian to some kind of art-metal or rhythmically adapted for idiots progressive”, I will consider that I've managed to win the battle with reality, to fuck the normality and what else… In short, “quest completed”. I wish you a pleasant listening.

1. Anna German – Russian-Polish pop singer, was especially popular in USSR and East Europe in 70s-80s.
2. Vladimir Vysotsky – famous Russian actor, poet, singer, star of 70s.
3. Aria – most significant Russian heavy metal band in 80s-90s.
4. Diana Arbenina – Russian rock performer, famous due to her impressive lyrics and distinctive vocal.