No prizes for guessing what this album is about – yes, it’s a Polish progressive rock compilation which brings together songs from many of Poland’s top bands. The vast majority are sung in Polish, and musically don’t sound very Christmassy but I can see ‘Betlejem’ in two of the song titles and ‘Jezusowi’, ‘Jezu’ and ‘Jezuniu’ in others so I am guessing that lyrically they must be. One of my favourite polish bands of recent years is Millenium and they open the album, with an English language version of “Silent Night”. To be honest I have always felt that this is one of the most boring carols imaginable yet somehow the guys have given it new life and have turned it into a nice little prog rocker.
This album is very much a sampler for the groups involved, and the digipak contains photo of each band along with line-up and a picture of all of their albums. It is quite a diverse mix of bands, with Loonypark probably being the most interesting after Millenium with strong guitar lines and great vocals from Sabina Godula-Zajac. Lynx Music continue to release good music, and the label is certainly worth checking out at www.lynxmusic.pl, but the chance of listeners being allowed to put this on the family CD deck instead of ‘Now Christmas’ is probably quite remote.
