There are moments in our life that major events happen, events out of our choice or control but they are big enough not only to put us out of our comfort zone but sometimes even to tear us apart. These are the life events that therapists write down in their notes when they get their patient’s background and from there they start to work over the issues that have to do with their history. What follows depends on the fragile psycho of the individual and the personal Id, something that we carry from the childhood years for the rest of our life although we always tend to wonder who we are, who we’d wanted to be but also what we expect from the others to see on us.
Looking at the title of the album it’s no hard to understand that the psychological identity is their main concern it the new album, an album that has been released after a five year gap and they still try to redefine who there are, after all even on personal level most of them focused on their side projects the last years. The loss of their guitarist and founding member Piotr Grudziński in 2016 was not only a huge shock but it also covered with sorrow the grey colors of “Wasteland” album while on the new release they let light through the window once again. But the lyrics aren’t that personal this time, they touch general thing like the toxicity in the modern world, toxic relations, social media addiction, fake news etc
It’s their eighth full length and this time they seem less melancholic while most if not all the new composition are definitely more direct with an intense 80s aura, especially when it comes to the Łapaj’s key colors through out the album, something you notice right from the start when “Friend or Foe?” kicks off and grabs your attention immediately. What’s more, that 80s feeling is also noticeable with the new wave drumming of Piotr Kozieradzki, only at some moments of course as he is still filling with some great prog playing the rest of the album. I think I cant really put the new release under a specific genre, it’s not just pure prog, I would say it is more a great art rock work. Impressive as expected are also the mature vocals by Duda, I catched myself checking only the vocal lines the first times I listened to the album but of course there’s much more going on and there’s plenty of prog juice for every prog afficionado out there. Maciej Meller’s guitar keep his presence low-profile but his talent shines at specific parts, don’t miss some beautiful guitar solos, especially on the 13 minute long “The Place Where I Belong”. As a conclusion I would say this is a superb album, full of lyricism and delicate sensibility but ye, so different than “Wasteland”, I think this time they created an album that will function really good on stage as there are no slow, fully mellow moments.
