ENIGMATIC

This album is said to be the first really progressive album of Czeslaw Niemen. It's a lot based on organs again, with a choir every now and then to give an original touch.

The first song, Bema pamięci żałobny rapsod, sounds like a religious piece, with a church choir chanting the words of a well known Polish poem, which is a common theme on the album actually. The song goes on quite some time with just the organs, but after some, five minutes, the church organ changes into a hammond one and the storm breaks out. There's a lot of cacophony and passionate playing when the drums come along. Later Czeslaw himself does the singing, and the choir takes a little less responsibility. Niemen is again himself with great singing and melodies. The choir backs him up as he takes out everything he can from his voice. These are the moments that send shivers up and down my spine. The song seems to grow up the whole 16 minutes all the time getting more closer to a climax. This song is really good for just closing your eyes, lying back and listening. Everytime Niemen screams the listener feels like he's lifting up a few inches. The song is very, very powerful.

Jednego serca on the other hand is a bit more straightforward material. With a female choir and a basic Niemen-singing, the song is very pretty, and, even though less, still quite rock'n'roll as the ones before '69. I'd say this song would be the best to describe his music throughout the times.

Kwiaty ojczyste I've heard being played on several occasions, though it's still a complex organ-prog song. The three songs after the long piece are all these organ based jazz-rock songs, though this one is more based on guitars than the rest and has a really nice sax solo in the middle. The same female choir chants a nice filling melody under Niemen, it's really catchy, and easy to remember.

Though I admit, this is not my favourite Niemen album, it's still very good. It's not so instrumentall based as it could be, and was later on, but it has really nice organs and singing. This was the style Niemen did really well back in the days. And with the blues-guitar in the third song, along others, the sound is very good. Mów do mnie jeszcze to an untrained ear is pretty much like the two former songs. Fusion with the female choir again backing up. Still, the album manages to hold on to the feeling from the beginnign to the very end, and the album never gets boring.

I aquired a version that has two bonus tracks too, Lipowa Lyzka and Pozegnanie Harnasia. These are both a lot more straighforward and closer to the soul that he was so good with earlier albums. Good songs too, and unlike with some albums, I don't regret getting the remastered version. I think, all in all, this album is better than just good, but still, for the common prog-listener, not obligatory, Niemen surely has better music that is essential. However, I recommend that everyone who's into jazz-rock/fusion and organ based progrock or just plain awesome singing... that they should all buy this album. I think it's easily worth its four stars!