PILLS

Warsaw-based band Love de Vice were formed in 2007 as Playfinger by friends who had been playing together since 1993, Andrzej "Messi" Archanowicz (guitars), Tomasz "Kudel" Kudelski (drums) and Robert "R.I.P" Pelka (bass). For this new venture they were joined by Robert Wieczorek (guitars) and Krzysztof "Krzychu" Slaby (keyboards), later deciding they needed a proper singer and when Pawel "Ozzie" Granecki (vocals, guitar) joined they changed the name to Love de Vice. They released their debut in 2009, following it with the next just a year later, but it took until 2016 for the third, by which time Wieczorek had departed, and they were a quintet (with quite a large number of guests).

They are included on ProgArchives as crossover progressive rock but to my ears that is quite a generous inclusion as for me this is much more a band who have been heavily influenced by different bands from the Eighties, and have been musical magpies, taking bits and pieces from here and there so each song can be quite different to the next. They have also used the vocal talents of Katarzyna Granecka to provide lead vocals on the title cut which gives a quite different take on their music. They can be a clean rock band with some slight Neo influences here, more of a pop rock band there, heavy users of strings in another, and brass in yet others, resulting in something which feels quite disconnected from each other. I do not know if their other albums sounded like this, but I note this one took a lot longer to appear than was originally conceived so I don't know if this was a continuation or a battle to get it finished. What I do know is that it never sounds Polish, with Ozzie having good clean unaccented vocals, and if I had been pushed to ask where this had come from, I would have guessed late Eighties/early Nineties UK and a label like One Little Indian or possibly Island.

It is enjoyable, albeit somewhat fractured in its approach, and is quite different to anything else I have had from Poland.