QUIDAM

I have to say I have been listening to this recently acquired CD all week, many times over, and have yet to be able to focus on it or on many parts of it. Normally by now it would have grown on me or been relegated to the recycle heap, but neither fate seems to have been reserved for Quidam's debut. I came to it via comparisons to the Collage classic "Moonshine" , and I see the similarity more in some of the guitar parts and a bit of the arranging, and less in the compositions themselves.

I fear this may be blasphemy, but let's start with the singer. It is not inevitable that a wordless vocal by a powerful female singer should sound like a blatant ripoff of "The Great Gig in the Sky", but Emila Derkowska attains this unfortunate circumstance in not one but two songs, and in both cases devalues what could have been a significant work. I also find her voice to be somewhat cold in some places, and with an odd resemblance to Japanese prog singers in bands like Teru's Symphonia, in "Nocne Widziala". I don't think her singing is as well suited to the style as, say, Robert Amirian's was for Collage. But it is compositionally that Quidam falls down the most. Few would claim that this is complex music, yet they insist on very long tracks that often lack the prerequisite glue to hold segments together, hence my continued tendency to drift off as I listen. And while short bursts of emotion and melody can be found especially in the guitars, these tend to be ephemeral and poorly developed. I have issues with the shorter tracks as well, such as "Warkocze", which seems ultralite.

Yet this is not a bad album. In particular, "Sanktuarium", "Niespelnienie" and "Plone" stand out, and "Chocbym..." was going great until the wailing commenced. Quidam has all the tools, but at least on the album they did not utilize them particularly effectively.