EGO, GEORGIUS

This is one of the greatest surprises from 2014 and definitely one of my Top 15 of that year. Were it not for a bit of a stumble with songs 6-8 ("Don't Need You," "Bottom of My Soul" and "The Gods of Our") this would be a virtually flawless play-through concept album. Opening with the world music electro-pop of "Naive" (5:59) (9/10) we get a kind of OMD sound before it turns more toward THE FIXX ("Stand Tall")--a sound that carries through song 2, "Bloody George" (3:03) (8/10). This is why Thomas likes this one so much! There are certainly a lot of PINK FLOYD sounds and riffs throughout Ego, Gerorgius and, like Floyd, none of the music is very complex and is often quite atmospheric. Also Floyd-like is the seemless flow from song to song.

Breaking away from respected Polish progsters ALBION, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Jerzy Antczak has created one of those albums that flows so perfectly from start to finish that one has no choice but to listen to it straight through each time. In fact, songs one through five bleed seamlessly one right into the next. It's awesome! Also, the album seems to start and end with its best clusters of songs. The music is at times quite atmospheric, acoustic, and full of samples and performances of folk and "world" instruments. In fact, I found myself thinking several times that this is where I had hoped MARIUZ DUDA was heading with LUNATIC SOUL. Jerzy's singing even sounds a bit like Mariuz's. This is better. Far better.

Favorite songs: the amazing COLLAGE/SATELLITE-like 12. "Waltz" (7:10) (10/10); the beautiful sequence of songs that builds up to "Nebayilhaye" 3-5. "Escape from.../Heaven/Nebayilhaye" (10:54) (10/10); 11. "Humid Tube" (2:56) (9/10); 1. "Naïve" (5:59) (9/10); 2. "Bloody George" (3:03) (9/10) and; "Mermaid's Song" (7:10) (9/10).

A very strong four star album plus.

9/12/15 amendment: After six more months of letting this music get deeper into my brain and using my revised system of metrics to rate albums, I am bumping this album up to 5 star masterpiece status! The album just doesn't quit--and it never lets me down!