SOUL'S INNER PENDULUM

As as already been mentioned in the bands summary, this is music that will undoubtedly please the neo-prop fans; lush guitar solos, melody to behold, with the end result that your mind can wonder off to places far away by musical influence. Sounds corny? Maybe yes, but it worked with Dark Side Of The Moon didn't it? Not a Pink Floyd but hopefully the reader can relate.

Just as with the debut album, (Lights From A Distant Bay) the musicianship is skilled with the focus on wonderful keyboards and guitars....the vocals are equally very pleasing yet distinct to the ear, sung in a beautiful English. The whole album is crafted to flow and it's a pity that it closes out after a shade under 1 hour. No fillers here.

Poland has yet again produced the goods in this genre. Quality music and dare I use that word "underrated"? However the music takes me to places in my mind i want to be at and it is that that gives me much personal satisfaction....just as Kamil Konieczniak intended no doubt.

Moonrise from Poland and their second album from 2009 Soul's inner pendulum. Well what we have here is a melodic release with plenty of neo prog passages combined with crossover elements, the result is an ok album, but nothing more. The problem is that this album is to mellow for my taste, ok has some more edgy arrangements coming from the guitarist, who done a good job overall, but fail completly to impress me. To much time the passages sounds the same, the piece beggins mellow and slowly and then turns at the end of it in some guitar solo piece, not bad but far from being intresting. The neo prog atmosphere is present but is very accesible kind of neo, without complicated moves and arrangements. Overall the word decent is best I can describe this release, is ok most of the time, but far and I mean far from being an excellent album, the cover art is better then the music. 3 stars hardly.

This is the kind of prog music I really adore.

The overall atmospheric vibe is very pleasing and I really enjoy the voice of Lukasz Gall from Millenium (another Polish band).

The solos on guitar and saxophone are really outstanding and add a nice flavour to the music.

The main man of this band is Kamil Konieczniak, and he plays keys, guitars and bassguitar. He's the composer and musical director. He adds spacey synths and really knows how to write good songs.

Some may find the music a bit boring. But it's not meant to be a metal-album nor a heavy rock album. The key element of this band and this record is creating soundscapes and atmosphere.

It's not 100% neoprog, because some of the music is really accessible. But as he said: it's the atmosphere that counts. And it works totally.

You can compare some of the music to RPWL, Pink Floyd and even Tangerine Dream.

After his debut was warmly received, Kamil Konieczniak decided to work on a sophomore album, this time though forming a regular band.Lukasz Gall would be again part of the project, but only as a guest appearance on vocals.The new Moonrise, besides Konieczniak, officially consisted of Grzegorz Jakiel on drums, Dariusz Rybka on sax and an experienced Marcin Kruczek, who played guitar around the time with Mindfields and Nemezis.The new album, released again on Lynx in 2008, was entitled ''Soul's inner pendulum'', with Konieczniak handling all keyboards, bass and some guitar parts.

The formation of Moonrise had dramatically changed with the addition of the new members, the general style was not with Konieczniak being the main composer of the project.''Soul's inner pendulum'', exactly like ''The lights of a distant bay'' twists around the softer side of Progressive Rock, mixing the smooth Polish Neo Prog with spacey and orchestral overtones.The music remains well-crafted and quite calm with long GILMOUR-esque electric solos combined with delicate acoustic passages and Gall offering his always mature and emotional voice to the compositions.Plenty of atmospheric Mellotron parts and extended piano lines add the appropriate depth to the lyrical content, while the synthesizers have more of a cosmic and trippy feeling in a FLOYD-ian mood.The pieces are pretty easy-listening with lovely melodic lines, but rarely do they get off the ground for more bombastic and dynamic explosions.It kinds of remind of the music of MILLENIUM or even SATELLITE as Konieczniak's basic guides, drawing inspirationS that start from the atmospheric music of PINK FLOYD, flirt with the lyrical tendency of MARILLION and borrows the melodic part of modern Polish Progressive Rock.

A nice album for fans of atmospheric and melodic Neo Prog, that hides much more than you can listen at the first spin.Well-arranged and executed material, that works well both as background music and as a proper listening.Recommended.

This is one for those of you who like the idea of taking neo-prog textures and compositional approaches (including guitar tones more than a little reminiscent of Marillion's Steve Rothery) and then making things mellow. Indeed, I suspect this album will prove to be rather polarising amongst listeners; there'll be some who find its laid-back, relaxing tone to be extremely pleasant, whilst others may find themselves bored and wondering when on Earth something is going to actually *happen* on these compositions. I didn't realise neo-prog bordered on new age relaxation music, but Moonrise seem to have found the dividing line between the two, and whilst I can appreciate that it is an interesting experiment in that respect I can't see myself returning to this album especially regularly.

In 2008 we could enjoy Polish formation Moonrise its debut CD entitled The Lights Of A Distant Bay, led by multi- instrumentalist Kamil Konieczniak with a contribution of Lukasz Gall (from other Polish band Millenium) on vocals. The next year Moonrise released a second album entitled Soul's Inner Pendulum and in 2012 (their swansong?) Stopover-Life. This review is about their second effort.

The sound on Soul's Inner Pendulum is in the vein of The Lights Of A Distant Bay. But due to Dariusz Rybka his saxophone play and especially Marcin Kruczek his guitar work, often Pink Floyd comes to my mind. Most of the 8 compositions start mellow and then turn into a slow rhythm with a compelling atmosphere, embellished with wonderful solo's on guitar and sometimes keyboards.

A good example is the opener Awakened, it starts dreamy with soaring keyboards, acoustic rhythm guitar and melancholical vocals. Gradually the sound becomes more lush featuring first violin-Mellotron waves and then a spectacular synthesizer solo with propulsive guitar riffs and a fiery Gilmourian guitar solo, what a start!

In Angels Hidden Plan we hear soaring violin-Mellotron with tender piano and then sensitive guitar runs with twanging acoustic guitar, followed by intense saxophone play and again soaring violin-Mellotron, simply beautiful.

More heavy and dynamic is Icarus (Full Moon 2) with a mid-tempo featuring tight drums and a powerful wah-wah drenched guitar solo.

In Feeling Like I Lost My Mind the focus is also on the guitar, we can enjoy a strongly build-up guitar solo that takes us to Eighties Neo Prog Heaven.

The joy continues with the epic final composition The Greatest Miracle (more than 13 minutes). First mellow with saxophone, a howling, Gilmourian guitar solo and a fluent synthesizer solo. Then the climate turns into more bombastic with pleasant vocals and powerful work on saxophone and guitar. And finally a very compelling part with a guitar solo in the vein of Camel's Andy Latimer (Nude-era), goose bumps!

I am sure the neo-progheads, fans of modern progrock and guitar freaks who love Latimer, Barrett and Gilmour will be delighted about Moonrise this wonderful Eighties Neo Prog inspired music.

My rating: 3,5 star.

See my social comment for a review about new interesting Polish band The Adekaem (not on PA).