Progressive Savage

Featuring Elsie

This is an interesting finding. Last week I’ve received a self-released self-titled digipak EP of the band Elsie. It turns out that the band was originally formed in January 1988 in Poznań, Poland by Zbigniew Ślatała and Eugeniusz Pierzchlewicz and in eight months time they managed to prepare for their performance on Jarocin Festival–the biggest rock festival in Poland at that time–in August 1988. The band suspended activity in 1995 and re-activated ten years later, this time as an instrumental progressive rock band. Current line-up comprises of Zbigniew Ślatała on guitar, Eugeniusz Pierzchlewicz on bass, Przemysław Nader on drums and Jacek Fajfer on keyboards.

The self-titled, decently mastered, 26 minutes long EP, released in December 2008, is an interesting piece not so much because of a lot of virtuosity going on here, but the precision it is played with. Everything on this album–well, maybe except the very title of the opening track Horn–seems to revolve around the concept of water, with music portraying calm water table once and roaring, shore breaking waves the other time. You can listen to three out of five complete tracks from this release on the band’s website.

The opening track here, Horn, begins with a calm piano quickly joined by an anthem-like electric guitar theme to eventually change into somewhat more heavy and aggressive riff, after which comes the inevitable solo performances. The guitar solo here sounds like it was written for two instruments and I think it would sound better if it would be played on two at least slightly different interleaving guitars, or maybe a guitar and a keyboard? Next song, a slow paced Laguna, begins with a bass and drum rhythm lead by a peculiar effect–I’m still wondering whether it is a guitar or a keyboard–that combined with the melody being played brings back the memories of Polish popular music of the ’80s. The third track, Surfing, on the other hand quickly shifts from a Spanish-like acoustic guitar theme to some really heavy riffs. This is a really varied song, I think the best of the album, introducing some interesting keyboards and guitar solos as well as really nifty passages. Nautilus is the fourth track here and it also beams with energy, just don’t get fooled with it’s calm opening. The most interesting part is a keyboard and guitar passages interleaved together, eventually coming to a joint conclusion. The last track, Venus, is a short and calm song performed by acoustic guitar and keyboard as a background.

This is a really nice recording planting some hopes as to how their next release might sound like. Kudos for self-releasing the CD. Bands that manage to eventually release against all obstacles gains my utter respect just for that. If I could only ask for one thing it would be more rhythm section–the bass and drums that is–frenzy. Come on guys, show us what you’ve got! For the rest of you readers who happened not to be members of Elsie, go and check the samples, order some CDs. I think their music deserves it.