DEJA VU

At a time when Millenium had finally found a solid core to build upon, their leader Ryszard Kramarski faced another two departures.Guitarist Piotr Plonka and bassist Piotr Mazurkiewicz left the band to be replaced by Przemek Druzkowski and Krzysztof Wyrwa respectively (also a user of Chapman stick).The new line-up entered Kramarski's studio in summer 2003 to record the new Millenium entry.The recordings finished in March 2004 and the album was on shelves for sale during the summer by Lynx Music.Title: ''Deja vu''.

The line-up changes reflected on Millenium's sound, which tried to find a new shape.The tracks have all this great atmosphere met in the previous album: dramatic moods, nice FLOYD-ian guitar solos, haunting atmospheres and great vocals by Lukasz Galeziowski.However to my ears they sound less demanding, additionally these great atmospheres are sometimes spoiled by the external use of technology: Too many vocal distortions, strong use of effects, not to mention the robotic sound of drums at some point and the use of ethnic-sounding keyboards.But the band still knows how to change mellow passages into richer ones and this saves the work from total mediocrity.An average album so far but all these just before listening to the last couple of tracks.Here Millenium recall the best moments of their previous albums.Highly emotional musicianship with a unique atmosphere in the vein of SATELLITE, nice use of background keys, deep bass throughout, moving electric soloing and Galeziowski delivering back-to-back amazing performances.

The last pair of excellent compositions will save the album from following the fate of the mediocre ''Vocanda''.The most uneven release of Millenium by far, split in great but also weak compositions.But the great ones are good enough to label the album as recommended.