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Incredible, what an amount of good and interesting
progrock Poland has delivered in the last decade: Collage,
Albion, Quidam, Indukti, Lizard, Satellite, Riverside, Osana
Vida, Hipgnosis, Moonrise and Nemezis. Recently we can add
another band to this list: Believe, they made a wonderful
debut CD entitled Hope To See Another Day in 2006, followed
by the excellent album Yesterday Is A Friend (2008) and now
we can enjoy a DVD release that contains a concert recorded
in 2007. It was the Hope To See Another Day tour, the band
played the entire album plus the songs Memories (on the forthcoming
CD Yesterday Is A Friend) and Beggar, from the Mr. Gil album
Alone, a project by Mirek Gil and released in 1998.
Believe makes pleasant modern progrock that
sounds very melodic and harmonic, from dreamy to fluent mid-tempos
and bombastic with a solid rhythm-section and tasteful keyboard
work (from sparkling piano to lush Hammond organ and even
a Keith Emerson oriented synthesizer solo in Coming Down).
Singer/guitarplayer Tomek Rozycki delivers a lot of passion
in his vocals, the often melancholical undertones remind me
of early Bob Dylan. The female violinplayer Satomi Yasutaniya
has a very classical style, her solos alternates between intense,
swirling and cheerful and the interplay with the other musicans
is splendid with a lot of emotion. But guitarplayer Mirek
Gil is the focal point in Believe, his sound is very similar
to his Rothery inspired work in Collage but he has matured,
nowadays his guitarplay contains variety like ‘bending’, ‘slide’
and the use of the tremolo-arm, resulting in many compelling
solos, from fiery to howling and the duo-guitarwork in Memories
is beautiful. On this DVD you can enjoy an inspired band,
an enthousiastic crowd (especially during the band presentation
in the excellent track Coming Down), a good sound, varied
camerawork, a beautiful lightshow and, last but not least,
very good renditions of the Hope To See Another Day material
(my favorites are Seven Days and the titletrack, what a great
atmosphere).
I am absolutely delighted about this band,
check out their new album Yester Day Is A Friend and this
DVD, highly recommended!
www.progwalhalla.com
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