IMAGINACJE

The history of this Polish band started mid 1995 when four musicians (Roman Kusy on bass, Marek Misiak on guitar, Jerzy Misiak on drums and Cezary Szczerbak on keyboards) founded a band with vocalists they occasionally met. Early 1996 12-string guitarist Tomasz Rychlicki and the first true vocalist Dominika Owsik joined Anamor, a few years later the band gave its first concert. And late 1996 Anamor made their first recordings, resulting in a demo with five tracks. Gradually Anamor got a small cult-following and the music was played on local radio stations. In 1999 Anamor recorded a second demo that contained 7 songs and in the same year Anamor shared the stage with Abraxas, Quidam and Camel bass player Colin Bass. Soon after keyboardplayer Cezary Szczerbak was replaced by Marcin Ozimek. In the new line-up the band started to work on their debut album late 2001, two years later it was released as an own production entitled Imaginacje (October 2003).

Listening to Anamor their pleasant and melodic music is stepping into the realm of the neo-prog. The nine tracks (between 2 and 10 minutes, total time around an hour) alternate between mellow with soaring keyboards, slow rhythms with dreamy vocals and mid-tempo's with piano and synthesizer flights. This is topped with excellent work on guitar (from sensitive to heavy) and warm and powerful female Polish vocals. My favourites are the longer and varied compositions Pejzaż (strong musical ideas and wonderful work on acoustic- and electric guitars and bombastic keyboards) and W Próżni: lots of shifting moods, a powerful flute solo (by Quidam member Jacek Zasada) and a compelling final part delivering a howling guitar solo, supported by sumptuous keyboard layers, this is Neo Prog Heaven!

If you like neo-prog in the vein of Pendragon or other Polish progrock bands like Quidam and Collage, check out this album! Just before I wanted to publish this review I read that Anamor have released a new album entitled Za Witrażem, after 15 years!

My rating: 3,5 star.