Tag Archives: album reviews

Lunatic Soul IV: Walking on a Flashlight Beam

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Walking on a Flashlight Beam 

  • Released: Oct. 13, 2014
  • Colour: Deep blue
  • My ranking: 2

Four years after the Hero was apparently abandoned, fate unresolved, Mariusz Duda took up his story again. On the fourth Lunatic Soul album we would learn something of the protagonist’s past: how and why did he come to die? In other words, Walking on a Flashlight Beam became the prequel to Lunatic Soul I, recounting a tale of self-imposed isolation, loneliness, and longing, picking up the clues left in the song “Transition” from Lunatic Soul II and turning them into an album unmatched in the entire Lunatic Soul discography. 

It was an album that came out of a very difficult time in Duda’s life both personally and creatively, and this is reflected in a shift in the narrative style. The lyrics turn inward, examining the psychological state of the protagonist–we see the Hero’s deepest fears and yearnings, and begin to understand the reasons for his actions. The personal darkness that Mariusz Duda was experiencing form the foundation of the words he would write. 

Walking on a Flashlight Beam is the first album on which electronic elements make their appearance, and the sound of the album is sparser, stark and less ambient, evoking emotions of loneliness and anxiety, terror, and finally calm, as the Hero makes his way through the songs. The words are heartbreaking; the instrumental pieces redolent with disquiet. The only guest is drummer Wawrzyniec Dramowicz.

WoaFB is clearly Duda at the top of his game; many fans consider it to be the best Lunatic Soul of all, and I agree with them. The structure of the album exemplifies what Duda calls ‘flow’: the trajectory of the songs, the music, the arrangements all work seamlessly together as we accompany the Hero on his terrifying psychological journey. WoaFB is Inspiration at its finest; however, the emotional and psychological cost of making the album may well have been too much for him to ever contemplate repeating. The words of the remarkable “Gutter” are autobiographical: for a while Mariusz truly feared that in order to accomplish something great, he must excoriate his soul and live in psychological darkness.

Upside: see above. It’s a tour de force.

Downside: <shrugs>

Lunatic Soul III: Impressions

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The introduction is here. The arrows at the bottom will move you from post to post: brief bios of Lunatic Soul I and Lunatic Soul II are already published.

Impressions   

  • Released:  Oct. 17, 2011
  • Colour: Grey
  • My ranking: 1

This album wasn’t supposed to exist. Duda had written the songs but he had done so with a much different plan in mind: he wanted to rerelease Lunatic Soul I and II as a set, and include these new songs as bonus tracks. However, the label (Kscope) stepped in and insisted that the songs were too strong and needed to be released as a separate album, otherwise they were likely to be overlooked.

Impressions is an album of 8 instrumental tracks that riff off of and extend musical ideas found in the first two albums: roughly, “Impression I” to “IV” are taken from LS I, and “V” to “VIII” from LS II. However, they are not revisions or alternate versions of any of the songs from the original albums, but entirely different pieces. It is not obvious which impressions are inspired by which original songs, and this gives the album a unique identity. Being completely instrumental, its power must rely on atmosphere and mood, and it is a masterwork in this regard, drawing on a skill set Mariusz Duda does not get to show off frequently in Riverside or even Lunatic Soul. His considerable chops in this area are probably underappreciated. There is no story to tell, so it acts as a musical supplement to the project. 

Upside: Kscope made the right call. This is a phenomenal album, captivating and immersive; even though Duda initially resisted the label’s suggestion, he concedes that, yes, this album works, far better than anyone expected. 

Downside: Are there any? Some people might not like that it is instrumental, I suppose. It is my favourite LS album despite the fact he doesn’t sing on it–and keep in mind one of the reasons I was so struck by LS and Riverside was the quality of Duda’s voice. 

Lunatic Soul II: The White Album

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I’m posting up teasers and sketches of each of the Lunatic Soul albums, in anticipation of the new album out this year, and as previews for my upcoming biography of Mariusz Duda. You will find much more discussion when that is published. 🙂  If you have not read the introduction, please do that first.

The Introduction is here.  The sketch of LS I is here.  The arrows at the bottom of each post will let you move from post to post.

Lunatic Soul II 

  • Released: Oct. 25, 2010 
  • Colour: White
  • My ranking: 6

The second part of the Hero’s story was released two years after the first album, with Lunatic Soul II. The cover was white, the vinyl was white, and the sound was somewhat different from the first album: brighter, sharper, more jagged–although it still retained its trance-oriental feel. The contrast was deliberate because the story of the Hero had changed. He had made his decision (to keep his memories) and had moved into a terrifying place of illusion and hallucination, where he began to question his choices: not only did he keep his good memories, but all the unpleasant ones as well, including how and why he died.

Musically, there is once again a mix of songs and instrumental pieces but it feels as if there is less variety. There is ambience, there is a ballad, and there remains the eclectic mix of instruments, but the overall mood of the album is one of anxious disconnection and foreboding, even in the last track “Wanderings”, which sounds bright and optimistic until one reads the lyrics. 

Unlike with the first album, Mariusz did not go into the studio prepared with ideas and songs (beyond the overall theme of course)–he had to compose and record while he was there. Perhaps this is why the album does not seem to quite live up to the debut: less variety overall, less “flow”, somewhat less satisfying. Only Maciej Szelenbaum and Wawrzyniec Dramowicz remain as guests. 

Upside: well, it is Lunatic Soul, and it has a couple of strong, ambient and atmospheric tracks, as well as one solid heavy stomper (“Escape from ParadIce”). 

Downside: see above–lack of variety in the song styles, especially obvious compared to the first album, and it feels less cohesive. Finally, there is a lack of real resolution for the Hero, who is simply left to wander eternally in limbo. Remember: at the time, this was the last album of the project. We were not supposed to learn any more about our unfortunate protagonist. 

Lunatic Soul I: The Black Album

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Below is a sketch of the first Lunatic Soul album in the project. If you haven’t read the introduction (which gives a brief explanation of why the project itself exists), you can read it here. Feel free to comment!

Lunatic Soul I 

  • Released: Oct. 16, 2008 
  • Colour: Black  
  • My ranking: 3

Lunatic Soul I is an album jammed to overflowing with ideas, which is not surprising since they had been accumulating for years. Mariusz Duda had been collaborating with musician and friend Maciej Szelenbaum since before he joined Riverside and they had recorded a lot of material together. Some of these songs, as well as other pieces written after Riverside was established, had not been suitable for the band (in fact, there are several tracks on the Reality Dream albums that perhaps would not have been there had Lunatic Soul existed earlier). There were songs that Duda loved and was very eager to release, and a separate project was the only way he was going to be able to do it. 

Continue reading Lunatic Soul I: The Black Album →

Lunatic Soul: Searching for the Light

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This long overdue summary is something I’ve been trying to accomplish for a couple of years now but somehow I couldn’t get the feel of it right. The format I used for the Riverside reviews didn’t really work for Lunatic Soul. So I’ll try it this way: I’ve written a brief biographical sketch of each album in order of release date, and included what I think makes it work, what doesn’t work, and how I rank it. I will post up these sketches over the next week or so. Once I set up my Substack they will appear there as well. 

The rankings: this is not a matter of liking/disliking anything. I love all the albums but to somewhat different degrees, and for different reasons, which I have tried to explain. I expect I am in the minority for some of these, so if you agree or disagree, let me know! 

First though–a (very) brief introduction to the project. A complete and detailed history of Lunatic Soul will be found in my upcoming biography of Mariusz Duda. 

Continue reading Lunatic Soul: Searching for the Light →

The Music of 2025 So Far

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What have I been listening to this year? A few things have come out that I might go so far as to recommend. I have to say, what I’ve heard up to this point is better than a lot of what I heard last year; 2024 was one of the more mediocre years for music I can recall. I  have a lot of hope for 2025. 

The way things are going so far, this year looks to be one of those instrumental years. Not everything obviously, but there seems to be a fair amount of post-metal/post-rock, prog/jazz fusion, and atmospheric ambience/electronica in the pipeline. Speaking of upcoming albums, of course the BIG anticipatory release for 2025 is the new Lunatic Soul, which, last I heard, is supposed to be long enough to make into an old-school-style double album, 90 minutes worth of music (as opposed to a regular-length album stretched over two discs) and will hit in the fall. I expect we’ll learn more about that at some point (trust me…I’m a LOT more excited than I sound here!).

For some of ya, the BIG album is already out, the new Steven Wilson solo. Yeah, I’ll say some words about that.

Continue reading The Music of 2025 So Far →

The Year In Music: 2024

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Every year I complain that I didn’t really listen to as much music as I wanted to, and every year I manage to scrape together some sort of list of music that I did listen to. This year was not different except that I was even more distracted than usual for most of the year and I often found that I was not in the mood, or did not have the opportunity to really explore new music. Work and some personal matters were kicking my ass, and when I was in the proper headspace a much more important project took my focus. Somehow though I ended up with a long list of about two dozen albums, so I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

However, I have to say that I found this year’s crop of releases less than compelling. Nothing really blows me away. This is not to say that there aren’t good albums on the list, but overall The Year in Music feels a bit underwhelming. However, it is also The Year of the Vocalist: man, there are some great singers on some of these albums! Manuel Gagneux, Yann Ligner, Patryk Zwoliński… you guys killed it.

In terms of genres: 2024 has made up for last year’s dearth of metal. I heard quite a bit of it this year, along with prog and prog-related, industrial, and some art-rock. There was no Steven Wilson this year, so no pop. (/jk)

I have nine solid contenders, and if I had to pick one more to make it an even 10… well, there are four leftovers of roughly equal merit so I might say something about those, too. I’m still not real sure about the order though, or which album I would make “Number 1”. There are two or three that could take that spot.

Continue reading The Year In Music: 2024 →

Review: Lunatic Soul Walking on a Flashlight Beam at Ten

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Walking on a Flashlight Beam turns ten years old on October 13, 2024. This album has a special place in my heart, and I want to explain why. It was the first Lunatic Soul album that was released after I became a fan, but that is certainly not the only reason or even the main one. Of course, what I’m about to say are my personal observations, and you may disagree with me–but you’d be wrong. 🙂

I’m not going to talk about the songs, so if you want to read about those, I have a full review here.

When Walking on a Flashlight Beam came out in 2014, it was almost immediately recognized as something very special in the Mariusz Duda discography by many reviewers and fans. It was the fourth Lunatic Soul release, a solo project which originally was supposed to consist of only two albums (Impressions is an instrumental supplement), but at some point, happily for us, Duda decided to keep the project going.

It was an album that was made during a very dark time in Duda’s life. Personal and emotional issues weighed on him; and when he first went into the studio, things didn’t go well. In order to recapture inspiration, he had to re-adjust his thinking and change the ideas, the approach, sounds and mood. Originally there were to be guest musicians, but he abandoned that idea: only Wawrzyniec Dramowicz remained on drums. There would be much less of the lush orientalism of the first three albums, and much more in the way of electronics. Shifting creative gears worked because this masterpiece came out of it. And it is a masterpiece.

There have been three subsequent Lunatic Soul albums in the decade since, so how does Walking on a Flashlight Beam hold up?

WoaFB is one of those albums in my collection that is of such importance that I cannot play it very often. I feel that when I do play it, I must give it my full attention, to honour it with nothing less than my entire listening presence. I own a few other albums like that, but not many.

For me, it is the most inspired, the most cohesive, the most nuanced, and indeed most intellectual of the entire Lunatic Soul project, and perhaps of Duda’s entire output.* After ten years it has lost none of its power; in fact it has gained stature as the other LS albums have been released. WoaFB reached a pinnacle in terms of flow, vision, and thematic integrity that the other albums did not quite achieve. In the wider context, it pulls the first albums (LS I, LS II, and Impressions) together, and provides an anchor point for the whole project. It is an album that is much greater than the sum of its parts.

There are LS albums that I play more often, that I consider “favourites”: the astonishing Lunatic Soul I; Impressions; and the joyous Through Shaded Woods; but I will state outright that by any objective measures, Walking on a Flashlight Beam is the best. It is a true showcase of Mariusz Duda’s creative powers, an album where all the elements–the music, the lyrics, the mood and atmosphere–came together in a perfect storm of inspiration.

*with the possible exception of “Transition II”, to which I have much the same response as WoaFB but this of course is not an album, and is a bit of an outlier in the LS canon.

There will be much more about this album in my upcoming book.

 

 

 

Music in 2024: April Quick View

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 It’s time to update what’s new in music in 2024 that has at least caught my attention (or enough of the attention of others for me to try it).

It’s been a bit slow this year, but I’ve also not been actively looking – several other things are keeping me busy. I’ll save or bookmark something, but it might take a week or three for me to get around to focusing on it, so right now, there is not much here. Anyway, in no particular order….

Continue reading Music in 2024: April Quick View →

Album Reviews: The Music of 2023

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It is that time once again, when I gather together the music that I have liked over the past year, and give a brief explanation of why I like it.

This year feels like a good year, and that is because most of the albums I’ve included feel like they may just stick around longer than the time it took to get to know them well enough to talk about them. Other of my year-end lists do include entries that never made much impact beyond the listening and inclusion; as much as I thought I liked them at the time, they ultimately made no lasting impression, which is not what I hope for. This year, either the albums are better, or I have made more of an effort to exclude the ones that might be short-lived. Or both. Still, there are a handful at the bottom end of this year’s list that are unlikely to be long-term players, but that do have some good songs, so hopefully I will continue to sample them. 

There are fourteen albums here that represent a relatively narrow set of genres compared to other years. There is a fair amount of prog, or at least a fair amount of music from bands with a proggy reputation, which might be a bit of a surprise if you know me. I do not consider myself a fan of modern prog and do not seek it out, mostly because I find the vast majority of it tedious and entirely predictable. However, there are a handful of bands who fall under that (admittedly rather broad) umbrella who can manage to sound fresh, so I can’t write the genre off completely. A few of them released pretty good albums this year. There is some industrial/industrial-related, some post-rock, and straight-up rock. No metal or post-metal this year, and no oddball genres. 

In terms of the ranking… I’ve put numbers on them but except for the three or four at the bottom, those numbers don’t mean very much. It’s crowded at the top. There are some clear distinctions among some albums, but there are also places where making a choice is largely arbitrary. 

Let’s go.

Continue reading Album Reviews: The Music of 2023 →