ENIGMATIC

Enigmatic was the fourth album by Polish rocker CzesŁaw Niemen, and it was supposedly his best. When I first found out about this record, I was mainly drawn to the album cover. And I just knew an album with a cover that captivating had to be extremely progressive, and I was hoping it would something like the amazing Pictures by Island. They both had this gloomy and dim album cover, so I was led to believe they had a similar sound. However, when I actually listened to the record, I was met with disappointment. It was still a good album, but it just doesn't live up to expectations. This is less of a true eclectic progressive rock album and more of a crossover progressive rock album. I'm not saying that his full discography isn't eclectic (I haven't listened to his full discography yet), but this album just felt like something was missing. Like I felt this record had a lot more possibilities with the musicians talent, and most of it was wasted on this straightforward record.  

The album opens with the sidelong suite, Bema pamięci żałobny rapsod, which includes some generally normal organ playing, though I will say that it does have some good emotion that ties in with it. The music switches from the organ to what sounds like Christian hymns a couple of times, before the music switches to a percussion sequence mixed in with the organ. After a little under eight minutes of this passage, the real music kicks in and Czeslaw lays down some gorgeous vocals accompanied by his organ, but the drums in this section are a bit boring. Most of his band joins in by this point, with some pretty cool yet short guitar solos. I feel like the chants by the chorus group also add some depth to this song. Now, the main problem I have with this song is that the song is basically the exact same for the rest of this sidelong suite. And while the vocal harmonies are still good, it can get a bit boring after a while.  

The next song and the opening of side two is Jednego Serca, which sounds a lot more classic in terms of rock. It can feel a little jazzy at some points, but it's still generally a rock song in a sense. The drums become a bit more interesting around a minute in, with some very nice fills and a much more aggressive yet happy sound. There's also an amazing guitar solo with a saxophone solo that I enjoyed quite a lot. The song evolves into a much more happy feeling with a female chorus instead of a male one and a lot more use of the other musicians musicianship. The next song, Kwiaty ojczyste, opens with a neat riff at the beginning and goes into another, for the most part, normal rock song. I would also like to note that I do like the bass line of this song and how it seems like it's always changing. The drumming style on this song changes again, and it sounds more like Guy Evans of Van Der Graaf Generator on this track, and this is probably the most progressive song on the album. Similar to the first song, however, it can drag a little. Now the last song on this album is M?w do mnie jeszcze (I'm not sure why CzesŁaw chose that as the title, but I won't judge because I don't speak Polish) and maybe the most classic rock sounding. Apart from some areas near the middle of the song and another guitar solo, it's just a little bland, and there is not much to say about it other than its generic sounding.  

In conclusion, Enigmatic was a bit of a letdown. I was really hoping for dark, complex, intricate, and mysterious judging by the great album cover, but in the end I was left disappointed. For now this is the only album by CzesŁaw Niemen that I have listened to, so maybe in the future I'll review his other work and give this album a revisiting, but for now I will leave this at a 3/5. It's still a generally good album, but it could use a lot more progressive structure and just overall interesting music.