Sic Mundus – Illusions (2024)

Just like in the (very) old days, I became curious about this album because of the beautiful cover, but immediately with the fear that this would be the umpteenth prog metal band that does its best to sound like Dream Theater. Were my fears well-founded? No, not quite, there are certainly quite a few heavier pieces on Illusions but as a whole I don't want to call it prog metal. Still, the music of these Poles is close to it, but lies more between this genre and the more accessible prog.

Basically started as a two-person project, there is a variety of musicians who contribute to a fairly coherent album with quite a few beautiful melodies and especially a lot of nice solos on guitar and keys. A lot of guest musicians have been called in for this, but the foundation is being laid by Andrzej Sesiuk and Artur Placzynski. The latter is also responsible for the Lyrics which are easy to follow and deal with modern subjects. In the intro they explain how the album was first released as an instrumental one with only virtual instruments but was picked up by the right people and as we can now see is developed into Illusions as it is.

Let's get something out of the way immediately, the vocals by Mikolaj Krzaczek are generally fine with not too much of an accent. Not too many grunts or other screams, but occasionally a somewhat stronger salutation with the aim of delivering the message with more emphasis, as in opening track Awakening. This happens more often but does not disturb. It immediately becomes clear that there are quite a few instrumental songs to be heard, four in total, and those are certainly not the lesser tracks on Illusions. There is also regular attention for electronic interludes or, as they say these days, industrial accents.

The choruses are often of a high sing-along content and for the guitar lover there is a lot to enjoy. Free like a Bird contains all of the above and is one of the more poppy songs with a chorus that gets stuck in your head. I'm often reminded of the debut album of fellow Poles Disperse (Journey through a hidden Garden). The various guest guitarists all make fine contributions from super-fast to very smooth and always well suited to the songs. Quiet passages are expertly interspersed with heavy guitar work, just listen to Time Machine, Victory of Light and Night and Day.

I would especially like to mention the longest song of the album, This is an Illusion because here Maciej Meller, yes the one from Quidam and Riverside, delivers a wonderful guitar solo that gives this song even more cachet. When I say longest song, I have to nuance that because on the whole all tracks have a fairly short playing time. The drum parts are often quite complex and in the instrumental Two Moons this is particularly noticeable and this song also contains a super-fast guitar solo. Every now and then there are snippets of music that sound familiar, but that is almost inevitable these days.

In the short last song, or rather fragment, the chorus of Free like a Bird comes back and so the circle is complete.

The question remains, is this year list material or is Illusions just missing too many memorable pieces for that? I'm leaning a bit towards the latter, but it's certainly a good album and I read some pretty rave reviews here and there and I get that.

I will definitely play the album again and I can honestly enjoy it because it is just good music made by very good musicians, but for me just that last bit of magic is missing that makes an album stand out. The CD comes in a digibook format and you have to love that, I don't, but the aforementioned artwork done by Jaroslaw Jasnikowski is really beautiful and all songs have their own page with appropriate illustration.

Music 73

Cover 93