Satellite - Evening Games

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Satellite - Evening Games

Artist:	Satellite
Title:	Evening Games
Label:	Metal Mind Productions MMP CD 0297
Length(s):	minutes
Year(s) of release:	2004
Month of review:	[09/2005]

Line up

Robert Amirian - vocals
Sarhan Artur Kubeisi - guitars
Krzysiek Palczewski - keyboards
Przemek Zawadzki - bass
Wojtek Szadkowski - drums
with
Konrad Kozera - final guitar solo on 1

Tracks

1)	Evening Games	16.45
2)	Never Never	7.02
3)	Rush	5.47
4)	Love Is Around You	5.39
5)	Why	6.59
6)	Beautiful World	9.05
7)	Evening Overture	10.38
8)	Take It As It Is	2.49

Summary

After their extremely well-received 'debut' (to be fair, this is almost Collage although Mirek Gil is not present this time around), this band led by their drummer Szadkowski, must have had a hard time coming back with something even better.

The music

It takes a while before Evening Games actually starts, but when it does, it does so acutely. Amirian puts on his lowest voice for a sinister opening. This makes the contrast to the highly bombastic part that follows all the more strong. The guitar work, the vocals are not very friendly, both lend a panicky atmosphere. Other passages are more poppy with easy-going rhythm boxes, vocoded vocals and poppy melodies. The guitar lines are particularly well-cared for. Then we run into a short piano intermezzo after which the rhythm guitar sets in and we hear Rothery's Seasons End style guitar. Still, there is more variety than that, in fact, compared to the previous disc of this band, there seems more edge to the music. A good thing, because I was afraid the band might become too tame. Of course, variety does not stop here, so what else we get: organ playing, a bit of folkiness in the acoustic guitar strumming, continued later in a more melodic solo style, crunchy rhythm guitars, singalong choruses, and so on. Some of the passages recur such as the urgent guitar dominated part that comes up around the ten minute mark, and the easy going part which recurs just after the eleven minute mark. As such, this song has all the elements of an epic, including its length. Influences are difficult to name besides a bit of Marillion, because these guys have been along for while and much of it is simply Collage/Satellite. It does seem to me the poppy parts sound a bit more modern.

Never Never begins a string of average length tunes. This one opens very percussively and bombastically. The music could well be used for say the soundtrack to the Lion King. The guitar sound is typically Collage and of course Amirian is enhances the Collage connection. This could well be a song from Moonshine. The chorus is quite loud with Amirian shouting out the title. Then the music dies down somewhat, to come back accompanied with synth strings. The guitar is high-pitched as usual, leaning a sense of urgency. These constituents are alternated until the end of the song.

Rush opens melodically with guitar and dancing piano. But right after, we get some violent programmed drums and choral effects. The voice of Amirian is vocoded to sound quite mean, but he has his softer parts as well. Still, this is a rather noisy and, for Satellite, inaccessible piece with plenty of noises and effects all vying for attention. There is space for breathers though in which the music has classical sounding aspects.

Love Is Around You sounds like we might get a ballad here after the upheaval of the previous song. Still, it is not as sweet at first, the vocals are in the lower regions of Amirian's, not his strongest. The chorus is dreamy, and somewhat higher than that. The overall mood is one of relaxing with the string synths in the back for occasional support. At the end, the electric guitar gets it solo spot.

Why is back to the crunchy rhythm guitar, marimba like play on the synths and the usual synthy violins. There is something of Oldfield in the melody here, as well as in the guitar sound. However, the rhythm guitar does give the music a temporary progmetal feel. However, this element enriches the usual Satellite/Collage sound by adding a sense of danger/urgency and the like to the music that would otherwise be a bit too melodic, too sweet. The middle part has an engaging passage filled with keyboard bombast and pounding drums, and overall a rather bombastic second half with the usual classically styled influences.

Beautiful World is a relatively long track, with a strong ballad like feel. The song is comparatively laid back and mellow with an accessible chorus. Sometimes I get the impression that Amirian falls a bit short here. The second half is notably rockier and modern, but also markedly less melodic, more meandering.

Evening Overture is maybe a bit strange in that we find it almost at the end of the album. It opens classically enough, quite bombastically even. The classicalness does not prevent the electric guitar from demanding and obtaining a leading role. Melodically this is strong material with the music building and building. The vocal parts that follow have good melodies, but after the bombastic beginning some of these parts are a bit of a let down, a sinking in. This is something I often notice: that the bombast of an introduction drops out when we move to the vocal parts and at that point the vocal melody must be very distinctive to survive the transition, in the sense that it equals the appeal of the previous part. In all honesty, this is one of the better tracks where melody is concerned (take the piano part in second half and the accompaniment on guitar).

Take It As It Is is the rather lighthearted and melodic closer to the album. It is mainly Amirian who has the lead here.

Conclusion

It seems to me Satellite has hardened somewhat, they have gotten more edge, which to me is a good thing. It thus lends urgency to the music, music that I can very well imagine would otherwise be too selfsimilar. For those into the band, there is no need to be afraid, because the tunings, the classical elements (especially the synth strings), and Amirians vocals and vocal lines are certainly in the same vein as that debut and make the music immediately recognizable. As such an easy choice for those who liked the debut (or those who liked Collage, but did not know that the band still exists in a slightly modified form), and for those new to the band: this is pure symphonic rock with a few outliers in the direction of progmetal and modern pop music, and a leading role for the voice of Amirian, the synthy string sections, a general feeling of optimism tempered by some urgency, and strong lead guitar bits.