PSYCHOPULS

Driving down the highway, cruise control on another 6 hour long trip, with Lizard's Psychopuls in the CD player, sunglasses repelling the glare, hair flowing in the wind, freedom. Not a single worry in the world, will I sell another system tomorrow? Who knows, who cares right now, I am zooming on Prog Highway. BWOOOP! Rear view mirror, State Trooper on my tail. Pffff! My Quebec license plate must have set off the alarm bells! Immediate stop, roll down the window, hands on the wheel, the smiling young policeman comes over. Officer Kaz Kaminski! Here we go: license, registration and what have I done all lined up like ducks. "Hello, sir! Just wanted to let you know that your trunk is open and hey, what's that cool music you're listening to?" I reply "Well it's a progressive prog band from Poland that.", "From Poland, where my grand daddy came from? And you said Prog? You mean like Glass Hammer? I listen to "Lex Rex" and "Culture of Ascent" all day! The guys at the station think that I consume some of the stuff I bust but I just love that band.." Well needless to say, I made myself an unexpected friend that day and we listened to this album in its entirety and asked him for his comments. The following are his impressions with a little help from Uncle Shakespeare (Cop grammar is a little lax!). Album starts off noisily with electronic confusion segueing into heavy KC -Red period pyrotechnics, full of shock, swagger and brutality. This is polyrhythmic dissonance in all its blazing glory, with Mariusz Szulakowski's percussion oddly metallic, Damian's evocative singing with shrouded Polish lyrics and with musical missiles fired off in all directions, like CNN scenes of Baghdad under air attack. Psychopulse indeed, the title is quite revealing. The eerie shimmering violin brings a dose of much needed elegance and emotion to the rather stark proceedings, soaring with gusto and wailing in agony. Lizard certainly does not shy away from their Crimson influence and frankly, why should they not wallow in the glory of the King? Another brief electronic meditation massages the atmosphere, getting in the mood for another resilient romp into the deepest realms of progressive insanity. On Track 4, Janusz Tanisztra's rumbling and reptilian bass carves out a simple furrow with the others simply following for the ride, again with a very Starless & Bible Black groove that is more honorific than outright plagiaristic. A gentle middle section only heightens the contrast between the soft and the steamroller parts, with the bass bopping along frenetically and nice mellotron waves make this a highly exhilarating outing and a rather cosmic finale. After another sonic interlude, the Lizards return with a rather jazzier affair, full of warm laid-back charm and cosmopolitan ennui, a slow sizzler completely at the opposite end of the raunchy meter. Track 7 starts ratcheting up the level of passion and commitment to some wilder territories that are best summarized by a brief nightmarish 'tron passage on track 8, gloomy almost electro-noise, highly minimalistic and strangely psychotic with whispered insanities ebbing oddly into a maelstrom of controlled confusion. The final piece is an 11 minute epic that finally raises the roof, full of hard electronic drone (Like John Foxx or Mark Shreeve) with slippery synthesizer bubbles, absurd lead lines and progressively morphing into a decidedly heavier expanse and booming drum patterns shrouded in deep electricity. The guitar lines represent severe madness and verges on being a soundtrack for a loony bin commercial. We serve the people: Glass of Wodka, a citation for DUI and 3.5 Demerols.