SVěT HLEDAčů

ME's last album Svet Hledacu of the decade is in some ways one of their most "prog", it was to signal the end of the Czech's most brilliant group, even if the following 33 album still has some moments. By this time bassist Freso has left ME, replaced by the returning Semelka, adding a second keyboard player, leaving the bass guitar spot empty. Oddly enough, while the 73 album and most of Svetanie were largely instrumental, Svet Hledacu has extended vocal tracks, with both keyboardist sharing vocal duties, and even odder, they both sound quite alike: it's quite hard to tell which voice belongs to which singer.

From the lengthy opener Za Krokem Zen, one can say that ME had heard of Grobschnitt's Solar Music live concept. Indeed an interesting track, a bit in the musical line of their previous Svetanie album, but nothing spell-binding past the Grobschnitt allusions. Hledám Své Vlastní is a keyboard-led track that hovers between Eloy and Yes. Closing the first side is Rajky probably the most complex of the album and has a definite Yes twist to it, but again vocally this is a cross of Ian Gillan meeting with Jon Anderson.

The flipside starts on the Zmoudření Babím Létem, a great and furious track that even Crimson clone like Anekdoten couldn't possibly match in terms of energy and is possibly my fave on the album with the opening Krokem track. Again the strong Eloy tendency resurfaces on this track. The 12-min scorcher Zázrak Jedné Noci is another excellent mini-epic, especially in its use of heavy/minor scale passages and its alternance between spacey/jazzy stretches and more symphonic lines ala Yes (especially in Hladic's Steve Howe-inspired lap steel guitar solos).

As with Freso leaving ME to refound CM and later Fermata prior to this album, Vesely would leave the group to reform Synkopy, the album comes with a bunch of later non-albums single releases, obviously shorter (due to the format), all sung as well and recorded after Veseny's departure. The six bonus tracks included are not much added value to the original album, sounding like typical AOR of the late 70's with an Italian vocal delivery, with the lengthier Fotka being the best of the lot, but not coming to the waist-height of the lesser original album tracks. Nevertheless, beside these slight drawbacks, Svet Hledacu is very much in the ME trio of "must- discover" lists, even being at moments better than Svetanie, but unfortunately ruined by the unwise choice of bonuses.