Wojtek Godzisz - Burning Ideals EP (Tigertrap)
2/5
By: Chris O'Toole
The death rattle could be heard for miles around. The battles had been fought in the charts and in the studio, taking their toll on all concerned. A nation was jaded to the tired sounds and bands floundered on difficult third albums, infighting and ferocious cocaine habits. The death knell of Brit Pop was rung loud and clear and the nineties were just about to walk gentle into that good night, before...Symposium. Crawling from the frayed coat tails of a dying carnival the teen punk terrors managed to cash one final paycheque on the movement before it drew its last breath and withdrew from the broken down stage for good.
Releasing two albums in their brief tenure, 'One Day at a Time' and 'On the Outside', the band managed to garner a small cult status amongst the youth of yesteryear as a vital live act and British answer to American pop-punk. Closer inspection in the glaring light of hindsight reveals a shockingly inept rock band struggling through ropey teenage angst, blindly blazing a trail nobody had ever considered following. These were lean times before the end of the millennium, anything snatched up as the next big thing and thrown on stage, and Symposium were typical of the age. Kula Shaker and Three Colours Red were also of the same ilk and met with similar fates. (Although, secretly, I have a soft spot for the latter, but that is strictly off the record).
The band called it a day before the close of the century. No harps were played. No processions marched through the streets. Nobody outside the band noticed. Yet, here, as if by magic is a comeback! Of sorts, at least. Wojtek Godzisz, the bass player and key songwriter in the original outfit has taken it upon himself to rehash the old pop-punk ideas and transport them into our brave new world. Unfortunately these said ideas haven't survived the test of time and his new EP consequently comes across as bland, outdated and at best a curio for leftover fans from the old venture.
The skeleton is the same as history would suggest and the six tracks presented on 'Burning Ideals' all follow similar lines. Simple guitar strumming is to the fore with Godzizs' voice wavering over the top, running his chosen subject manner into the ground. Occasionally there are flourishes from horns and clattering drums, utilised in a, failed, attempt to lift the tedium. All are framed in a stripped down, basic paradigm, mirroring the lack of ideas of the songs themselves.
It is emotive in the way that any everyman can identify with it, yet this makes it utterly without purpose. Why express the loss and suffering of the twenty first century in language a teenager from any age could produce? The lyrics explain nothing, offer no insight into the human condition, there are no answers or displays of incisive intuition, just rote repetition of tired old formulas taken from yesterdays scrap books. A lot of people would shy away from rhyme structures based around eyes/lies and even life/life but not Godzizs who just wades through regardless. This could be hailed as ingenious simplicity, not cowing to complex vocabularies and complex compositions, but in truth it is pure lack of imagination. This could be the album the term inoffensive was coined for; fading straight to the bottom of the stack, never to be heard of again.
N.B The origami packaging is, however, superb.
Stream 'Burning Ideals' HERE.
Artists in this article: Wojtek Godzisz
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