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Everything I wrote in my review of “A Street between Sunrise and
Sunset”, the first album of Satellite, applies also for this second
album “Evening Games”. It’s certainly a worthy successor with the
same quality and even better. There are of course some differences.
First of all, if you compare the line-up, Satellite has become a
real band, in stead of a project by Wojtek Szadkowski. There’s only
one guitar player and one keyboard player left, while on the first
album there were a bunch of guest musicians. And yet, there’s only a
picture of Wojtek in the booklet and not of the rest of the band.
So, still a project after all? I hope not, because I really would
like to admire them live once.
The music has become a little darker, but remains in the same neo-prog
style of the first album, although some real progressive rock is
lurking round the corner from time to time. Just listen to the
almost 17 minutes title track opener, which contains everything a
progressive fan can dream of and already makes this album his moneys
worth. The link with Marillion remains, I even hear a bit of Fish in
Robert’s voice during that first track.
Again, there’s a lot of variation in the music, certainly in the
compositions and in the keyboard sounds and solos. The guitar lost a
bit of its diversity because Mirek Gil is no longer around, but
you’ll certainly love the many solos of Sarhan. His sound is a bit
less ‘Rothery’ than Mirek’s.
Robert, already singing in the last Collage line-up, is a great
singer, but as I already mentioned in the review of the first album,
it could use some more backing vocals.
Wojtek is not only a good composer, his drum play is only of the
highest quality. Although it sounds as if he’s using the double bass
drum during “Why”, without turning the track into metal, it’s all
done on his single bass drum. Quite impressive!!
Every track is a highlight of neo-progressive music. The epic
opener, with every possible progressive ingredient, “Never, never”
with the easy to remember chorus, “Rush”, a beautiful semi-ballad,
“Love is all around you”, a superb ballad, “Why”, a slightly heavier
track with some fantastic vocal lines and very progressive
instrumental intermissions,…
The keyboards are playing a major part on this album, with some very
essential solos and sounds that really give the tracks their own
recognisability. But also some subtle sounds, for example the little
oboe sound during the first track, are really essential for the
music.
After “A street between sunrise and sunset” and “Evening Games”, I
can’t wait to hear what music will be linked to the Polish night and
morning. |
