MILLENIUM - EXIST - 2008

It was just a wild guess to take this album by Millenium. I didn't know this band at all but I saw they were from Poland and that made things a lot easier. Poland has brought so many great prog bands through the years and I saw this release had already received two 5 star and one 4 star rating. At least it had to be some good even though two of the three ratings came from compatriots.

And it gives me no greater satisfaction than when such a guess turns out to be a real winner, I can already reveal this one did ! I read in the one review that there were hints to Floydian guitarwork and you can notice that already in the first track. There are four long tracks on this release and that's only an advantage since I like longer tracks in general. This first one, Embryo, has some extremely nice instrumental contributions, first the guitar later on in the song some relaxed keyboards reminding me of 90's Eloy. The vocals aren't the most fabulous you will ever hear but in this first song it's compensated with fantastic compositions. There are also resembling moments to Satellite towards the end of the song. Maybe some typical Polish sounds.

Second song is called Up & Down and suddenly I hear the vocalist reminds me of the lead singer of Summer Indoors a British progband from the nineties. These vocals have a significant part in this song but again there are some tremendous instrumental moments that lift the song to a high level.

Also the third track starts with some unimpressive vocal lines which almost ruin it slightly but then the guitar comes in for a bit of help and suddenly the song sounds like a winner again. And that's in fact the secret for this entire album. The instrumental performances are of such incredible level that it turns the whole thing in a masterpiece.

And that becomes evidently clear with the last track. If there were any doubts at all about the status of this album, these are taken away in this final song. Road to Infinity is an amazing song in which musical perfection is ultimately reached.

The first three songs were somewhere in between 4 and 5 stars but as the last one easily reaches the full five I can't resist the temptation to give this album the full score. There are a few reasons for this. First: the average score over 4 songs is significantly above 4,5 stars. Second: this is instrumentally one of the best and most perfect albums I ever heard. Third: the compositions are truly of the highest level. And 4th and most important reason: it suits my personal taste the best way possible. Maybe objectively it's not quite a masterpiece but in my book it is. So 5 stars for Exits.

I think the band description on PA tells it perfectly: influences from Pink Floyd, Pendragon, Collage and Arena which are all favourite bands of mine. So it's not really a surprise it gets the full score.
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