ALONE

Mirek Gil is a legendary prog guitarist, formerly of Collage fame, who put out this one solo album. He is Poland's version of Steve Hackett, a fluid, lyrical, majestic guitar slinger with perhaps an even warmer tone. After briefly helping launch the highly successful Satellite, he is now leading the more contemporary sounding Believe with critical acclaim. While there is very little to dislike with this solo album, coming soon after the Collage demise, its not quite as sublime as the group effort and that even though he is helped by two other members of that masterful group (the lush Krzysiel Palczewski on keyboards and Piotr Witkowski on bass) as well as featuring the truly fabulous voice of Olaf Lapczynski, who actually can sing in accent less English and come across with verve and clarity. Future Believe Drummer Wlodek Tafel mans the drum kit with precision. Another neat trait is the lyric booklet that has the words to all the songs in English and the Polish translation. Hey, learn a language to boot. "Strange" is a symphonic opener that sets the spotlight on all the players, the shimmering and romantic guitar supplying the emotion that elevates the passionate vocals and contributes to the wall of majestic choir keyboards (a Palczewski trademark) that sets the table just perfectly. Simple yet powerfully evocative. "I Don't Believe" is a more playful song , perhaps even commercial but without any surrender to trend or fad, relying on a chorus that pleads with the lyrics and offers up a dreamily restrained oriental synthesizer solo that comes out of nowhere, adding a very unexpected touch. "Alone" is the title track and it does not disappoint, a deeply melancholic lament full of fragile despondence ("You won't hear my beating heart, my desperate whisper") that platforms a trembling guitar excursion, towered by violin sample synths that seek to heighten the drama. From the bleak sadness comes the bright awareness of "Wake Up", a flash of sunlight and of gentle hope ("The love has come, it's standing at your door") that is quite inspiring in its simplicity with the angelic backing vocals repeated the title with tender abandon . This is a long gorgeous piece and only a superb Gil lead can take this into the heavens and he does. "Beggar" is the first of four short songs, a simple ditty full of bright vocals where "I see light, I see life sparkling in your eyes" sticks in your brain long afterwards. "Set Me Free" is way more upbeat and is propelled by an insidious bass groove that relentlessly searches out the freedom of expressive thought and leads into acoustic driven "War" that reminds of the Floydian The Wall, the fourth and final part being the instrumental "Mother Dream" with a somber intro leading towards heavy synth orchestrations, tubular bells and a most welcome delicate piano, extraordinarily laid back with mountains of choir and violin arrangements. At 8 minutes and 43 seconds "Enough" is the epic here, a stretched out piece that is about love spurned (not exactly prog material but.hey it's love, life's greatest mystery), with Olaf sadly lamenting "I just love you but you say that you do to some degree. Your heart is cold, so cold", then suddenly bellowing "Let's go to Monaco, then to the USA, Brazil and Mexico, I think I need a holiday!" Here is another hopeless romantic trying to save a lost cause. Damn, sounds like what I was not long ago! An amusing track but no classic because the next one is "Stay", a piano vocal plea that has an almost pastoral folk quality that exudes all the romanticism that while almost infantile , still resonates with purity. "New Day" is a fitting finale, a positive outlook at the future with birds singing on the fadeout. A good record that deserves being owned but the lyrics and the instrumentation are a bit too simplistic for this reviewer, especially in comparison with past and future collaborations. 3.5 solo Wodkas