EXIST

Millenium is another welcome discovery (no, not the very disco ELO album!) from Polska and contrary to newbies Nemezis, these gents have been around a while but somehow escaped my often astute spotlight. I guess I need to fine tune my prog radar but it's a good thing to have followed PA's "progrules" advice and I took the plunge! They started out in 2000, hence the reason they call themselves Millenium and this is their 8th album (oh, my gosh!) and it's an unbelievable outing. Led by keyboardist Ryszard Kramarski , this crew likes the extended neo-prog sweet suite style with lavish and languid tempos , overflowing with sweeping synth and sublime guitar soloing with some accentless vocals courtesy of Lukas Gall. I jokingly reflected that the reason musicians get into prog is because they can't find decent vocalists, so they concentrate on the compositions, they exception being Satellite and Collage both having the effusive Robert Amirian handling the mike. These lads are creative players, four tracks ranging between 11 and 16 minutes, with some interesting takes on a well-travelled genre and there are some cool moments and makes for some enjoyable listening .The rhythm section has some Warr guitar which certainly denotes some adventurous connotations or desires. "Embryo" initiates the slowly evolving bliss ride, assuredly in a quiet Floydian vein, with that chunky/bluesy screaming guitar that emotes like no other, swooning amid a tapestry of deliberate sounds until Lukas grabs the mike. "Guit-slinger" Piotr Plonka slithers in a few choice licks, using the volume pedal to great effect and weaving nicely with Kramarski's fleeting synthesized runs. Not exactly Gentle Giant but then who is? When some athletic fingered piano diverts the piece into a harder edge, the mood veers into a rollicking pounder, another excuse to let the 6 strings roam into the ether. An interesting opener that bodes well for the rest of the album. "Up & Down" has some underlying robotic effects that recall 80s synth pop but with zippingly exuberant guitars upfront pushing the envelope. A cool organ rampages nicely through the gale, "up and down" the keyboard as I to keep the joy ride alive and brimming. The piano serves as a welcome interlude and signals a return to the revelry. "Rat Race" is my fave here, an angry little ditty full of passionate singing, passionate playing and a chorus that has a lot of oomph! The blazing guitar scorches like phosphorescent explosion, reeling in well-meant agony aided by some audacious rhythmic swings. The final track "Road to Infinity" gets the epic aspect cranking and assembles a lush table with curious riffs and circuitous patterns that are perhaps more hard-edged than the usual British-based neo- prog, yet still able to blend various moods that cannot plod on senseless. This will need some more time in my multiple CD players and will probably settle in nicely as a most welcome addition to my prog empire. This is not the album of the year, far from it but a very pleasant excursion into melodic progressive landscapes. 4 human turtles.