SAY IT is a project from guitar player Sayit Dölen originally from Poland. Mr Dolen has been around since the nineties having participated in live performances with Graham Bonnet and Mickey Thomas. He is a hard guy to find information from and there's not much to find about his history and recent musical adventures on the net. SAY IT doesn’t even have an official video clip on Youtube unfortunately. However, legend has it that he was able to release 2 , of what is considered “masterpieces”, albums over 20 years ago. These albums have the collaboration of heavy hitters of the time like the bass player from TOTO, the guitar player from EUROPE amongst many others. Their music output is more to the side of the very soft rock of the already mentioned TOTO, and also BOSTON, REO SPEEDWAGON or FOREIGNER. It seems that due to popular demand, Sayit Dolen decided to re- release his first 2 albums Sayit 1999, and Again 2001 in a single double album named One And Again released in 2023. It is a whooping 23 song double disc release and I usually try to comment on every song of an album. But in this case, I believe it would be too much for you my reader. Therefore, I decided to give a general impression of each album instead of each song.

I can start saying that the production is pristine for a 90’s album. I do understand that the albums were remastered for a 2023 sound, but you can feel the care on the songs. As pop as a rock can be, they take you right back to the late eighties and early nineties where you had a kind of rock with a lot of pop added top it. Bands like HALL AND OATES or KENNY LOGGINS. The first album is already a good, well played and performed work, with good compositions and catchy tunes. I see what the buzz is about SAY IT. This is an album that could easily have been a best seller of the time as the music reflects the era perfectly. The care on the production and the quality of the band are evident. This is at least an 8 piece band in a live setting. The songs of this first release have all the right ingredients from danceable swings, a wall of backing vocals, the presence of at least 2 keyboards, and the epic guitar solos. Is the kind of music you can play anywhere and it will be easily digested. It has the annoying ballads with the extra suffering vocals as expected. The song “You're My Inspiration” is particularly hard to get through, but the others are pretty well composed pop-rock a la PHIL COLLINS. It reminds me so much of my young years. Songs that I did not particularly like at the time due to the extreme pop nature, but I never had an issue listening to them as I knew that competent musicians and producers were behind it.

The second album in this double release is called Again and it is pretty much a suitable sequence to the first release. The same kind of palpable pop-rock with the usual use of really great singers. On this album we have a nice vocal duet on “Dawn” with 2 masterful singers and a memorable chorus as standart. Distorted but clean guitars and that softness that only RICHARD MARX can provide. The album has many singers and they use the duo vocal tool in a number of songs. Another album that could easily be amongst the best sellers of the time. A solid pop-rock album that seems not to be in the charts of the era. Sayit Dölen shows how well of a seasoned musician and composer he is and his work deserves to be more present and recognised. The musical output is as commercial as it can be but there is no shame on that as this is a formula that made a lot of people famous.

Archeology is the study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts (Thank you Google). Sometimes these artifacts may be considered treasures that were long lost in history and after many years in the dark, they do have the chance to shine again. In music archeology is the same thing. There is so much excellent music work from the past that hardly got the recognition they deserve, and with the dawn of the internet generation, these musical genres are trying to be rediscovered. Getting your music played in the eighties and nineties was cruel. You needed to rehearse a lot and spend a lot of money in a studio to record a demo. Then you had to  take that demo to an unfair and mostly dishonest record label where you had to sell your musical soul to get some promotion after your songs being heavily changed by some producer. In my garage band days, having a cassette with your rehearsal recorded by one microphone was already something to be proud of. All that to say that it is great that these releases are able to return with a modern production but keeping the same spirit and vibe of their respective era for a second chance in the limelight. Solid work from a band that could be in the same level of the great survivors of the era that are still touring today. Speaking of witch, SURVIVOR is another band that comes to mind. I should evaluate this release as if I were in the late nineties to be fair.