„Trupa Trupa from Gdansk, Poland, releases a guitar album on which US new wave is combined with British influences and mild psychedelics. The material was recorded in an ancient synagogue and a dilapidated machine factory and it sometimes sounds slightly like the disturbed sounds of The Sexgang Children (Snow), with dangerous but tuneful guitars, and then dreamy and secure (Halleyesonme) or – after an quiet intro – it explodes like a hard rock song (Sky is Falling) and then returns to a quieter level. The drums are loud, the guitars are whistling and – as if it was all a fantasy – the guitars float by quietly and the beautiful voice of frontman Grzegorz Kwiatkowski creates peace and order.
In Sacrifice the Polish poet sounds like John Lennon and you wouldn’t be surprised to find the song on a Lennon album, although the shrill guitar sounds in the background really make the difference. The mantra-like Getting Older, with triangle, groaning and popping drums and bell-like guitars as a background for the emphatic choral singing, is not only original, but also a slightly intoxicating composition. In Give ‘m All we hear an organ in the background, atmospheric guitars and a beautiful vocal line by Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, a quiet and very beautiful ballad, while the reverberating Wasteland moves in a psychedelic direction, an the fanning melody gets free rein in a whirl of guitars and voices. Very very nice.
Song number 8 is called Rise and Fall and sounds darker than the material we have heard so far. The guitars arte humming, the percussion is bombastic and again the repetitive chorus has the quality of an intoxicating mantra. Headache gets two interwoven vocal lines, insistent percussion, shrill guitars and is pure psychedelics, complemented with powerful rock guitars, but it’s the vocals that ultimately dominates the composition, soft and mantra-like, later blatant as in pure hard rock and related styles. In Unbelievable in the band returns to the dreamy atmosphere of Halleyesonme with again a high Lennon level in terms of voice and mood. Picture Yourself initially has an exotic atmosphere with African-sounding guitars, but then evolves into a steaming rock song in which again the repetitive vocal lines create a heady atmosphere, mantra-like, with whistling electronics and nagging guitars. Very nice.
An Eastern European band is almost synonym of a wall of sound in the style of Bauhaus and associates, but Trupa Trupa sounds quieter and more versatile, with American and English influences and a repertoire that is coherent and at the same time very diverse: a very balanced and nice album.”
William Lienard, www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be
