Gall

Gall stands for Lukasz Gall. People who are familiar with the Polish progressive rock scene know that he is the fantastic lead singer on the nine albums officially released by Millenium. However, he even became better known when he became the voice of Moonrise, a project/band led by multi-instrumentalist Kamil Konieczniak. In return Kamil became one of the keyboard and guitar players that helped Lukasz to realize his first solo album Anonym. The other two musicians playing all the keyboards and writing the music together with Kamil were Krzysztof Lepiarczyk (Loony Park) and Krzysztof Malec (Albion).
Together with Millenium’s founding member and keyboard player Ryszard Kramarski - who produced, recorded and mixed the album - and a couple of people on drums, bass and lead guitars they managed to come up with a well-balanced album that has an overall mellow feeling. The songs are not that complex, but we still can enjoy enough strong instrumental passages. That’s rather unique when you realize that this album has been made by a lead singer who doesn’t play any instrument at all. It’s easy to tell that Lukasz likes a fine guitar or synthesizer solo just like the ones you can hear on the albums made by Millenium and Moonrise. Maybe the level of his compositions is not as strong as on the latest Moonrise-release Soul’s Inner Pendulum or Millenium’s Exist. However, the more you play Anonym, the more you find out that the album doesn’t contain Moonrise, Albion or Loony Park leftovers. By no means, because all tracks have something to tell music wise and on almost every track we hear a fine melodic guitar solo or a tasteful synthesizer solo. Good examples are Disaster Calls Another, Flying In Circles and Evening Sun. We can enjoy awesome guitar solos on tracks as In The Mirror Of Dreams, All Believers and Fools Don’t Lie. The latter is the final song and has a real Marillion -sound. If you would tell fans of Steve Rothery that he plays guitar on this piece they would certainly believe it, but it’s Albion’s Jerry Antczak who gets all the credits here.
The beginning of Anonym contains the short instrumental title track. On this track you hear all kinds of sound fragments Lukasz recorded in the past. It’s like a radio playing a short medley of Lukasz Gall’s previous musical efforts which means that he isn’t Anonym at all. His first solo effort once again shows how strong his vocal performances are. Gall shows his emotions whenever the song needs them. Therefore I can only give him and all the people who made this album worth listening to a big compliment. It’s not just an album made by a singer who wanted to make a solo album, because he felt he had to do one of his own no matter how it would come out. Well done indeed and a ‘must have’ for everybody who likes the music of Moonrise and Millenium.
*** Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)
www.lukaszgall.pl