This is a new solo album by the Polish guitar player Jerzy Antczak who is also a member of Albion. The album contains twelve new songs that are mostly instrumental although Jerzy gets some vocal assistance from a female singer. The music on Ego Georgius is a blend of exotic Eastern sounds, cosmic themes and lots of guitar hooks, riffs, solos and melodies. Jerzy plays the guitar of course, but also keyboards and he sometimes sings on the album as well. The album opens with a rather boring funk/folk like song and here Jerzy mainly plays the acoustic guitar. Follow up Bloody George almost sounds like Uriah Heep, which is due to the organ in that track. The first good track is the instrumental Heaven, which features a Pink Floyd kind of intro followed by a nice melodic guitar solo. Nebayilhaye is a rather “heavy” song which is sadly spoilt by the Polish female voice of Anna Batko. In fact the entire album is a bit, which is an understatement, too dark for me and this is mainly due to the melancholic vocals. The “worst” song for me would be the almost ten minutes long “epic” The Gods Of Our Planet, which is filled with keys, vocals and only a very short guitar solo. That track almost gets on my nerves, because it does not really evolve, or come to life; it just drags on and on in the same tempo, without variety whatsoever... Maybe I just do no “get” the album and Ego Georgius is a brilliant art rock album? ** Martien Koolen (edited by Astrid de Ronde) Where to buy? |
