Thrilos - Kingdom Of Dream

(CD 2016, 55:10, Lynx Music LM 113 CD)

The tracks:
  1- Kingdom Of Dream(17:49)
  2- Short Jazzing Expression(3:12)
  3- March Of A Dying Beauty(4:37)
  4- Waves(7:49)
  5- Source Of Confusion(7:22)
  6- Strange Images(10:44)
  7- Closed Within(6:06)



Website      facebook     
X


Thrilos is a Polish progressive rock band with a rather strange history. Somewhere in 1997 they finished their debut album Kingdom Of Dream. The story goes that the band had a record deal. Anyone can imagine the euphoric feeling these guys had. Just one more step and Thrilos gets the opportunity to be part of the progressive rock landscape. Unfortunately the record company turned the feast day into doomsday. They decided to cancel the deal. For almost 20 years Kingdom Of Dream was put on the shelves. Lynx Records heard about this tragic story and 20 years after finishing the record, it is released. A rather odd story.

To review this album you have to know this story. You also have to put this album into perspective of time. Luckily I'm familiar with the progressive rock from the nineties. Let's take a look if this release is legitimate. Thrilos are Katarzyna Sroka (violin), Barbara Glowoc (flute), Adam Berda (vocals, guitars), Stanislaw Sroka (guitars), Dariusz Plachetka (keyboards), Marcin Tomaszewski (bass) and Karol Papala (drums).

The album opens with an epic-, mainly instrumental song Kingdom Of Dream. The song starts with very modest keyboard lines. After a while a very fine guitar sound comes in to fill up the empty spaces. The guitar sounds reminds me a little of Robert Fripp. The tension in this song is perfectly built up. After a while the song ends up in a Flower Kings-like atmosphere. The song is mainly instrumental, with vocals just at the end. Personally this is my favorite song.
Short Jazzing Expression is a jazzy intermezzo. Guitars, flutes and violin are taking the lead. The singing in the song is very timid and clear. I recognize a little Fripp once more. This second song runs into March Of A Dying Beauty. The atmospheres are staying the same and nothing new is put to the music. Waves is an interesting song. The singing is once more no big part of the song. That's fine, because I don't miss it at all. The acoustic guitar parts are influenced by Steve Hackett. Further on there is quite a lot of flute in the song. This is a really great song.

The last three songs Source Of Confusion, Strange Images, Closed Within are more of the same. This means keyboards are taking the lead in the songs and clean-, chorus guitars, flutes and violins fill in the holes. The tempo of the songs is staying nearly the same. The album has a constant quality, but also a constant flow. The musicality of all the members is really great. Unfortunately the album doesn't bring the tension I hoped it would bring. After four songs the music gets a little predictable. Music must have some tension. Music must have something you can't predict, it has to surprise you constantly. This is something I miss in this album. Nevertheless it's a nice album. It's really sad that it wasn't released in 1997. In that time the progressive rock market was quite different. Nowadays the number of releases is enormous. It's difficult to be original nowadays. The changes for Thrilos were much better in 1997 than now in 2016.

But I must say, it's very generous of Lynx Music to release this album. These guys deserve to have their album finally released. In the perspective of 1997 this album is really great, but in the perspective of 2016 this album is good.

***+ Aad Bannink (edited by Astrid de Ronde)

Where to buy?




All Rights Reserved Background Magazine 2016