Favorite audiophile-quality cover bands ...

While my love of music is vast in scope and includes jazz, classic rock, classical and more niche genres to numerous to list, I have never listened much to cover bands, by which I means bands that primarily cover the works of others rather than create original material. 

But I make an exception for an exceptional group whose covers of Chicago, especially that band's earlier years when its work was more intricate and driven, a cover band whose members don't speak English, based in Moscow, a collection of phenomenal Russian musicians and one Ukranian, Leonid & Friends.

They don't really re-interpret as much as they recreate but with better studio equipment and the result are covers that are as musically compelling as the originals but recorded more cleanly. While Chicago is their focus, they also do covers of Deep Purple and Earth, Wind and Fire, as well as a recent original.

They have CDs but the quickest path to get a sense of their talent is through Youtube; here's a link to a Chicago classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_torOTK5qchttp://