TY I JA

Carol Of Harvest has returned again after a very long break. This album is the first of many albums, if everything goes according to the plans outlined in the Carol Of Harvest interview. I am sure this will please a lot of people.

Carol Of Harvest has not changed much from the two albums. If you love the first album, you will probably love this album too. This time, the lyrics has been written in English and then translated and sung in Polish. That's a first, to my knowledge.

The ethereal beautiful vocals of Ewa Grams dominates this album. Music wise, this album is a mix of folk rock and unfortunate, electronic pop. The programmed drums is pretty annoying at times and a big mistake by Carol Of Harvest. The addition of the other instruments in addition to the acoustic guitars is a good choice, on the other hand. I wish Carol Of Harvest had relied more on their main strength and not on trying to become more commercial. The electronic pop stuff seems a bit too desperate commercial. In today's music business, this does not wash.

Song wise, the material is good, but nothing more. There is no outstanding tracks, but there is no real weak tracks too. If you really are into ethereal female vocals based albums, you will rate this album far higher than I do. But this album could had been a lot better if Carol Of Harvest had put it closer to folk rock instead of going of into all other places. I still think this is a good album and I welcome Carol Of Harvest back again. I am sure we will hear a lot more from them in the future.

3 stars

For 30 years, CAROL OF HARVEST's sole album was regarded by many as a prog folk classic, all the more remarkable for overcoming a passe style even then. The spare and raw arrangements and the assured vocals of Beate Krause rose to the occasion for one glorious moment in time. So when an apparent solo album, under the original moniker, by guitarist Axel Schmierer emerged in 2009, accompanied only by a new young songstress Ewa Grams from Poland, I was a drooling skeptic. I listened once, maybe twice, and concluded that it was not at all worthy of the band's legacy, and shelved it until 2023 when I decided to start looking at comeback projects of this sort, mostly from the non Anglo world. I really thought this to be an open and shut FAST case but it has remained on rotation for several days and, while I still maintain that it lacks the luminescence of earlier vintage, it's actually an admirable effort in the realm of ambient pop with folk and prog accents. And yes, while Ewa might not have the Beate, she certainly won't be triggering calls to a gaffer any time soon.

Apart from a few guest lead guitar solo parts, Axel plays all instruments, many synthesized to sound like brass, but the flute on "Druga Szansa" is so convincing that I wonder if a credit was missed. Most tracks thankfully have little percussion, and a few subtle acoustic guitar touches glance over the atmospheric arrangements. The Polish vocals are actually caressing and the melodies often cycling and mesmerizing. A couple of numbers are more energetic without corrupting the mood. Axel sings on the appealing "In Between" and the rather silly "Lucky", which is PhD level compared to his narrated philosophy on "Zostane Tu", which nonetheless subsequently morphs into one of the more musically ambitious cuts, along with the title track. While none especially stands out, and a few are frankly banal, for the most part "Ty I Ja" gets a thumbs up, and suggests that not attempting to recapture the original magic with no other original band members was an inspired choice that more of this vintage should make.