Millenium has been walking the neo-progressive paths for 22 years now. Archetype of the Polish school, the band led by its leader Ryszard Kramarski practices an accessible and melodic neo-progressive rock displaying a strong Pink Floyd coloration.
"The Sin", sixteenth production of the group, is obviously easy to approach with immediate and not very frightening themes, a Gilmour-like guitar and Wright-like keyboards. The neo-prog, it is well known, it is pretty, without asperity, comfortable and reassuring, the more so as it is assisted here by an impeccable production.
Is it enough to make it a recommendable object? Not so sure...
Because since Marillion, the style's paths have been traveled in all directions, and instilling novelty has become a delicate mission. Here, no novelty to be expected, the album is of a confounding classicism, even in the concept which illustrates the seven deadly sins, a hackneyed theme if there is one.
In the absence of originality, the listener could bet on inspiration, which seems to be greatly lacking here: the vocal lines are often banal ('Gluttony', 'Wrath', 'Greed') and carried by a Lucasz Gall that we have known more inspired, notably with Moonrise: from bewitching, his register has taken refuge in a much more conventional pop tone. The structure of the tracks follows the specifications of the style, with the obligatory passage by the soaring guitar intro, the guitar solo which passes the word to the synth, unless it is the opposite, in short the listener follows an ultra-balanced itinerary in an ultra-conventional landscape. 'Envy', the last track of the record, sums up the qualities (sound rendering, accessibility and production quality) and the defects of "The Sin", even in the 30 years old synth sounds or the choirs that try to repeat half of the previous sentence, in a process that dates back to the 70s...
Millenium makes with this album a demonstration of the limits of the neo-progressive style, by locking itself in a style which had its admirers but which shows its limits when it remains too much confined in stereotypes worn to the rope. The pleasure of discovery often requires that one deviates from the too frequented routes...