State Urge is a young band who hail from Gdynia in Poland, formed by Marcin Bochenski (drums), Marcin Cieslik (electric guitar, vocals), Krystian Papiernik (bass) and Michal Tarkowski (keyboards). Although most people would call these guys neo-prog/prog, they have quite a different idea on how their music should be described: “We hate being classified, though, as we aspire to create an immersive atmosphere in our works, especially in the spectrum of sound. Our compositions usually start out as instrumental improvisations, with elements of rock, blues and even classical music occasionally shining through. Despite all of this the original sound of our band becomes dominant in our creations and thusly we like to call our genre in our own way, White Rock”.
Following on from two self-released EP’s, and gaining a following in Poland with lots of radio airplay as well as performing with acts such as Votum, the band signed a deal with Lynx Music to record their debut album. They took the opportunity to record a mixture of both brand new songs and some that had been played for a while, but definietly wanted to be seen as being something different, hence the use of the words ‘White Rock’. Of course, when I first saw the name of the band I thought that they were referencing Rick Wakeman’s 1977 classic, which was the soundtrack to the Innsbruck winter Olympics, but while that is not the case they do make me think of fresh snow, as there is a crispness, clarity and clean feel to the sound and production that is rare for a debut. I then looked to see who had been involved on that side and found that Ryszard Kramarski from Millenium engineered some of the songs.
At times they use sounds that are more often featured in dance, with electronic drums and beats, but one of the real joys is the way that they don’t feel restricted or pigeonholed and they do exactly what they feel is right overall. Consequently, although they can be labelled with the progressive label they are quite different to most of the other bands in the scene, and this is an album that feels like a breath of fresh air as it blows through, and consequently is one that I have been playing a great deal. Well worth investigation.
www.lynxmusic.pl
