For many years one of my favourite Polish bands has been Millenium, which has always featured Ryszard Kramarski on keyboards, and who this month released their fifteenth studio album. If that wasn’t enough, in 2017 we had the debut album by The Ryszard Kramarski Project (TRK Project) where he provides keyboards and guitars, and last year they released their seventh album. Of course, even though he also owns and runs Lynx Music he felt there was still something missing, so decided to bring back the name Framauro. This was the band pre-Millenium, where Ryszard also provided lead vocals, and they released their only album, ‘Etermedia’ in 1998. Using musicians from TRK Project, this was the comeback album in 2022: joining Ryszard Kramarski (vocals, keyboards, acoustic & electric guitars) were Marcin Kruczek (guitars), Krzysztof Wyrwa (bass, fretless bass) and Grzegorz Fieber (drums).
Before playing this I did have some concerns, in that I have known Ryszard for many years, but have never come across the debut Framauro release and given he has not sung lead vocals much since then, if at all, could he actually sing? Thankfully he has a really nice voice, and I was soon relaxing yet again into another great release, which has a very pleasant Eighties Neo feel to it. There is something about this album which is quite relaxing, and I think this is due to the lack of pretentiousness as this is something to be enjoyed on face value. No-one is trying to be too much in anyone’s face or dominate proceedings, and while they all have room to make an impact it is never undertaken to the detriment of anyone else in the band. There are nice clean guitar solos, links between the guitar and keyboards which are quite Uriah Heep in manner, always with a commercial hook, drums which are driving but never over played and a bass which can often be found right behind the melody.
The song “When Idols Are Gone” commences by listing a host of musicians and singers who are no longer with us, which leads us into a poignant piano-led ballad which is heartfelt and emotional. The duet between the acoustic and electric guitar works incredibly well on this, providing some nice counterpoint to each other, until it is time to become more dramatic and the song becomes a belter before it calms back down again before the end. This is an album which, unlikely some proggers, can be enjoyed the very first time of playing and only keeps getting better. Another delight from Poland.
