ALBION

1. "Motyl" (6:30) after an impressive 90 second opening, things slow down to piano and synth washes supporting the entrance of singer Katarzyna Sobkowicz-Malec. Overall, the music and approach feel quite similar to that of 1995 countrymates QUIDAM--though perhaps a bit heavier, more COLLAGE-like. I am impressed with the composure the band is showing--as if they have all the time in the world in which to unveil their tricks. An excellent song--with no fluff! (9.5/10)

2. "Szary" (4:49) an interesting song with an engaging rhythm track at its core. Reminds me of the French band CHILDREN IN PARADISE. (8.25/10)

3. "Bieg po tęczy" (11:15) a long instrumental that opens with churning/boiling cauldron industrial sounds. At the one minute mark the band bursts forward into a fairly plodding (and spacious) four chord progression before going ART OF NOISE just before the two minute mark. Baby gurgling over washing synth sounds precede the entrance of Katarazyna's classical guitar. Nice. At 3:15 the band returns with a motif that is familiar from ALAN PARSONS PROJECT's "Fall of the House of Usher" suite. Nice lead guitar work in the fifth minute. Keys get their turn in the sixth and seventh. Nice sound, engaging if not very exciting sound palette. Spacey pause at the 7:00 mark leads to eerie pigeon take-off sounds before moving into a pretty section around 8:20. The music builds, thickens, from there, to a satisfying if unspectacular finish. (17.5/20)

6. "Yuppie" (4:59) nice engaging guitar melody and synth chord progression to engage the listener during the opening 45 seconds. Then Katarzyna enters, singing in Polish with some insistence. Synth solo, followed by excellent extended guitar solo, before the music thins to make way for Katarzyna's return--this time singing in a gentler, more sensitive, almost Mediterranean style. Nice song though nothing extraordinary. (8.75/10)

5. "Inny" (5:19) guitar harmonics. Heavy bass chord. Drums. Synth "voice" washes. Katarzyna. A formula for a nice wistful ballad. Very cohesively constructed. The only thing lacking is the "big hook." Katarzyna has a very solid, very confident and versatile voice. (9/10)

6. "Wolna (7:59) piano and synth "voice" support establish the melody line in the forty second opening. Then the full band, working to fill more of the lower end, enters to expand on Krzysztof's work--until it's time for singing, then every dials back or cuts out for Katarzyna to tell us what this is about. The instrumental section that follows this first verse is thick, like a PINK FLOYD set up for a Gilmour solo--which is exactly what proceeds: another great Jerzy Antczak solo. At 3:33 we open up again for Katarzyna's singing. The 4:30 transition into heavier, thicker territory is quite magical--with layers of voices assisting Katya. Then we move into a lovely little carpeting of Richard Wright-like Fender Rhodes play, which morphs into a little "Tubular Bells" before the full band bounces back in with its thick Neo Prog support for the final minute. Nice. (13.5/15)

7. "Cienie (8:10) a very slow, gentle soundscape opens this--and continues into the first verse of Katarzyna's singing. The, at 2:15 a horrible sounding acoustic guitar enters strumming away in a repeating descending four chord progression. Luckily, this section ends and we're back to the "Mercy Street"-like section for Katarzyna to sing over again. As the tension slowly builds, it's good: the horrible strumming acoustic guitar is replaced by Jerzy's electric guitar and then his soaring soloing. Unfortunately, for me this is the weakest song on the album. (11.5/15)

Total Time: 49:01

They have all the sounds, all the chops, all the tricks, mature compositions, and great engineering, they just lack that little extra oomph! or hook to take us over the top.

B/four stars; an excellent addition to any prog lover's music collection--especially if you're into engaging, well- composed, well-engineered Neo Prog.

The aforementioned bonuses reveal a band setting out in 40 directions at once, from the country ish "Nie Wiem" to the more rock but hook oriented "Wszystko jedno" to the folk influenced "Deszcz" and "Zanurzona", which hint at their future tendency to close albums with a nod to roots not otherwise evident, though here the delights are far more acoustically oriented, if no less rewarding. In short, the bonus cuts do not appreciably reflect their predominant style and approach once they finally laid down tracks for posterity a decade later, or the decade after that for that matter.

While early demos and tentative recordings are sometimes best left to archivists or the committed, in the case of ALBION, this remake adduces an already evolving band in a form that can be appreciated as much as their more polished later works.

From the first bars of "Call it a Sin", reminiscent of fellow Poles BELIEVE, and its amorphous transition to the sweetly strummed and appropriately named "Lullaby", my attention was seized for the duration. This is a dark and at times doleful record in all the best ways but with luminescent moments that seem to bubble up from the spirit of its participants, such as on the paradoxically upbeat "Lady Death". It revels in transitions from near metal riffs to hypnotic passages in which keys and Rafał Paszcz's devotional percussion induce a sense that even "Hell" affords its own redemption. I'd like to think that the title's meaning is more metaphysical than physical, and more listener than individual focused, because, if so, I can attest that "You''ll be Mine" is a direct hit.

Luckily, the middle 4 vocal tracks present the band in more comfortable settings. Incorporating the expansive and atmospheric qualities of DAVE GILMOUR, I also hear hints of fellow Poles BELIEVE in "When I see the Light". While Krzysztof Wyrwa is demoted to the role of guest on bass, his work on this track seems 110% vested. "Airborne" is the closest to the familiar style and certainly the highlight, returning to their well of fascination with space travel and Katarzyna's skill at hypnotic phrasings repeated with emphasis, culminating in a crescendo led by Antczak upon Grzegorz Bauer's jagged base.

While the state of ALBION might have been indefinite in 2013, the band proved that they could still toss together a collection that matters.

This is another brilliantly arranged and played offering, with more of a focus on the searingly melodic lead guitar of Jurek Antczak, but with chunky dollops of spacey keyboards, mostly synths. I'd say, while it's of consistent high caliber, it lacks the couple of killer cuts present on its predecessor. Continental influences include SATELLITE and CLEPSYDRA. The theme, enunciated through injected, at times, irritating voice clips of 20th century leaders in the two epic tracks, seems to be how are lives are manipulated by those leaders for good and evil. But honestly the lyrics might as well be in Polish because I endure long stretches without making out a single word let alone a sentence. Katarzyna's voice is just fine as instrument though, particularly on the hard rock moments in "Angel" and "I am", but in the dreamier numbers we often don't realize she has been singing until the incendiary solos begin. "near the End" is actually at the end and it marks the second album in a row that is serenaded off with a lighter almost folkie number. Yessssssss!

"Broken Hopes" is a another sweet sounding effort by ALBION which is unlikely to disappoint fans of this style.

The opening notes of "Motyl" call to mind the French group ECLAT from the mid 1990s, with succinct plucked guitars eventually heralding the ensemble. As much as early neo prog and COLLAGE may have helped shape ALBION, I hear as much integration of the continental and new age sounds on the sole instrumental piece, the sweeping synth heavy "Bieg po tęczy", romantic pop in the boombox friendly rhythms of "Szary" and the earworm chorus of "Inny" , Finnish symphonic prog in the addictive riffs of my favorite piece "Yuppie", and good ol folk rock in the sunny closer "Cienie",

"Wabiac Cenie" ranks up there with the best from countrymen BELIEVE, SATELLITE, COLLAGE and MILLENIUM. It is the only ALBION release to be sung in native tongue, which is just another reason to rescue this exquisite triumph from the shadows.

As I said before, "Scarecrow" plays like a mediocre BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST, with a decent sound but no development. "You" is most notable for representing the blueprint for the early success of OF MONSTERS AND MEN a decade and a half later, whether that Icelandic collective had ever heard this or not! In other words, it's clever pop with a few ambient tendencies, but a tad lightweight in this setting. The sound quality is cleaned up on the remakes, but not much else really changed: it's still lush, dreamy and melancholic with soaring guitar leads a la COLLAGE's "Moonshine" from a couple of years earlier, the heir apparent to the sound that COLLAGE couldn't grow before they imploded. Insert Anna Batko in lieu of Robert Amirian, clean em up and set em free! Well, except for "Golgotha", which is even spacier and suggests where DAVID SYLVIAN may have gone after his mid 1980s albums. It sports a rather fluid Spanish acoustic guitar style technique. I've yet to listen to more recent ALBION but this seems like this wouldn't be a bad template, unpredictable yet cohesive.

Among the newcomers, "Sarajevo" grafts a foreboding atmosphere to more uptempo sections reminiscent of STEVE HACKETT. "Shadow" is more mellow but just as haunting, anchored by plucked acoustic or low amp electric guitar and synths played like piercing winds. The band must have sensed the autonomic accompaniment and closed the album with an instrumental version. One Polish language mini epic is included, also gentle and acoustically driven, smoldering to an ensemble climax. The vocals do not dominate, and as such Albion avoids some of the most flagrant weaknesses of many practitioners of this style past and present. Spoiled again by Polish neo prog!

While influenced by STEVE HACKETT's solo works as well as HACKETT-era GENESIS and early neo prog, ALBION, like contemporaries COLLAGE and ANNALIST, succeed in crafting their own identity through an equitable alchemy of soaring synthesizers, lead guitars, and a transparent focus on melody. Vocalist Anna Batko, in her STEVIE NICKS meets TRACEY HITCHINGS persona, is as integral to their artistry as the instrumentalists, but yet they are not so much a female-fronted band as a band that happens to comprise a female singer. This subtle distinction is part of what makes them so effortlessly authentic.

While the chicken or egg argument could apply vis a vis comparisons with COLLAGE and Jerzy Antczak with Mirek Gil, it does appear that ALBION influenced COLLAGE successor SATELLITE, nebulously via that group's second album title "Evening Games" but even more by the dark atmosphere that permeates many of the pieces, and the brooding introduction to the wonderful "Collapse" seems like a blueprint for the dark apprehension of that later work. The title cut and "Mad Look" are also thrilling. In fact, other the poppy "You" and the static "Scarecrow" - which sounds like an early BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST outtake from around the time they could no longer work with an orchestra and hadn't figured out how to work without an orchestra - this is remarkably consistent. It's not quite a master class though; I don't think the compositions quite ascend to that level. The most progressive and intricate number here is the closer "Gogoltha" in which Paweł Konieczny wrests the mike when needed and acoustic guitar, bass and percussion nudge a most deserving inaugural release to its climax.

While only collectors may be motivated to seek out this historic demo given the closing of the loop that has been assured by subsequent releases, "Survival Games" exudes a brio lacking even in veteran bands. ALBION has taken this philosophy to heart for 25 years.

Songs like Sarajevo, Jeszcze śmierć chowam w kieszeń and Golgotha show that Albion had their personal sound well developed, specially on the hands of guitarist Jerzy Antczak, who is clearly the star here, along with Anna Batko emotional vocal deliverance. The keyboards parts of Krzysztof Malec are not as greatly explored as he later would, but they are just as elegant and tasteful. the rhythm section is tight and the production is quite good for the time. It´s interesting to realise they would take a whole decade to come up with a follow up, but , as it happened, it would be worth the wait.

I am really happy that I gave this CD a second chance after all these years. It is far better than I initially thought and I´m glad to know that this band was special from the get go. And Jerzy Antczak is one of the most underrated guitarists of prog: his fluid, powerful and beautiful licks and solos are a joy to hear: personal and creative but clearly coming from the school of masters like Gilmour, Akkermann and Latimer. If you like that kind of sound you should check this record. A nice find!

Rating: something between 3,5 and four stars. Maybe not up to the next two follow ups but nearly as good.