Tag Archives: album summaries

Lunatic Soul VII: Through Shaded Woods

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This is the last of the current Lunatic Soul releases I have summarized. The eighth album is due to be released later this year, and of course I will review it when I get the opportunity.

Thank you for reading this series of posts. If you have not, you can start at the beginning here, and work your way along by following the arrows at the bottom of each post. Feel free to browse the rest of the site—there are lots of reviews!

Through Shaded Woods 

  • Released: Nov. 13, 2020
  • Colour: Dark green
  • My ranking: 4

Through Shaded Woods joined Lunatic Soul I, LS II, and Impressions on the side of Death in the Circle of Life and Death, the first album to do so since 2011. It was intended, somewhat ironically, to embrace life and light–and boy did it ever do that. Musically, it was closer in essence to the first two Lunatic Soul albums, but there is much less ambience and trance. The sparse and jagged sounds of the previous three albums were also gone. TSW deeply celebrates traditional Slavic folk and ancient rhythms brought into modern times: the album is pure folk-rock exuberance run through Mariusz Duda’s prog filter. 

It is a much more acoustic album, but it is not a delicate album by any means, with plenty of riff-driven heaviness compliments of the piccolo bass which is used extensively throughout. “Navvie” has to be one of the most kick-ass opening tracks in Duda’s entire discography, and the rest of the album lives up to it, at least until the last song (more on that below). The enthusiasm is infectious–it makes you want to dance, even through the two spectacular proggy epics, “Summoning Dance” (which completely lives up to its name) and “The Passage,” featuring one of Duda’s heaviest riffs. The album is unique in that there are no guests at all: Mariusz plays everything including the drums. 

Lyrically, we pick up on the Hero’s journey after he was left to wander at the end of Lunatic Soul II, lost in limbo as he begs for another chance at a new life. He kept his memories to be sure, but these included recollections he’s found he’d rather not carry with him. He is desperate for the opportunity to choose again. However, we do not follow the actions of the protagonist in any detail–we are still deep in his psychology, his desires, regrets, and yearnings, coming to terms with his past. This of course reflects how Duda himself shifted his lyric approach to the project in the years between 2010 (when theoretically it had ended) and 2014 when he returned to it. The inner world of the protagonist takes on much more importance because the lyrics began to reflect the events and issues in Duda’s own life at the time he wrote the albums. 

Upside: Exhilaration and sheer unadulterated joy suffuse this album; when Mariusz is having fun, you can surely hear it. Also, the 27-minute long instrumental bonus track “Transition II” is an absolute phenomenon of long-form atmospheric writing on his part. TSW (along with Fractured) has probably done the most to introduce Lunatic Soul to the Riverside fanbase who hadn’t paid much attention to it, as well as to a wider prog community, and it is easy to see why. 

Downsides: a couple, which stand out because the album is, in general, spectacularly good. First, the last song, “The Fountain”–yes I know how beloved it is–is overdone. All those swelling strings…alas I find drags the overall feeling down some. Second, handling the drums himself. Mariusz is a competent drummer, and I know why he chose to do it himself, but there are times when a song or two demands more than competence. I love the album but I miss Dramowicz’s presence.

Lunatic Soul VI: Under the Fragmented Sky

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Under the Fragmented Sky 

  • Released: May 25, 2018 
  • Colour: Violet–it is also the only album without the “ls” logo in any form. 
  • My ranking: 5

Generally when an album is made, not everything written will make it onto the finished product. This was true for Fractured: some of the music Duda created did not fit that album’s theme and mood. However, there were some very powerful pieces that were left over, songs that begged for release, and so he decided to complete them and make a kind of “companion album” to Fractured. The result was Under the Fragmented Sky, and the two albums could not be more starkly different. UtFS is bright, forward-looking, almost upbeat–there is still an undercurrent of anxiety but you can feel the struggle to overcome it. It is also very strongly electronic–in some ways it is a precursor to the electronica project that became Duda’s fourth “musical world” in 2020. 

It is mostly instrumental, sparse and powerfully melodic; lyrically it is closer to the Lunatic Soul story than anything on Fractured. Interestingly it seems to be in two parts: the first half is open and more acoustic, the second becomes darker, more electronic-driven, yet somehow it all hangs together. It is difficult to believe that the songs came out of the same sessions that produced Fractured. The album ends with the brilliant “Untamed”–the “wind-up” song is not perhaps Duda’s strongest skill, but “Untamed” is one of his best and a just plain great track. It doesn’t hurt that it is anchored by Dramowicz’s spectacular drumming, the only song on the album on which he appears. 

It was at this time, just before UtFS was released, that Mariusz revealed something else: The Circle of Life and Death, a graphic that illustrated the relationships that each of the Lunatic Soul albums was to have with each other. He had first thought of the idea with WoaFB; when it became clear that the project was going to continue he needed to plan out the rest of the releases. Since the overall theme was life, choices, and rebirth into a new reality, the albums would follow a cycle, ever repeating. The Side of Death was where the original project began, with LS I, II, and Impressions (as a side branch); the Side of Life held WoaFB, Fractured, and UtFS as a supplement. The music also had different characteristics for each side of the Cycle.  

Upside: Bright, electronic and quite experimental at times, and yet much closer in feel to Lunatic Soul than Fractured is. Brief, laser-beam focused and miraculously cohesive, the album has the “flow” (even Duda admits this to be true) that Fractured did not quite achieve. 

Downside: it is difficult to place this in the Lunatic Soul narrative sequence, since the lyrics are not like those on Fractured. So far it is a “supplement” in the way Impressions is, but it is not equivalent to Impressions: you can’t just ignore the words. 

Lunatic Soul V: Fractured

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If you have not read the other entries in this series, you can use the links at the bottom of this post. The Introduction to the whole set is here.

Fractured 

  • Released:  Oct. 6, 2017 
  • Colour: Dark red
  • My ranking: 7

If WoaFB arose from a depression rooted in personal events and difficulties, Fractured was the result of tragedy on an entirely different scale. The ‘ls’ logo on the cover is so deliberately splintered to be almost unrecognisable. 

This was–and probably remains–the most deeply autobiographical of all of Mariusz Duda’s work. It was the spring of 2016, and he was almost destroyed by the sudden death of Piotr Grudziński, Riverside’s guitarist and his closest friend, followed three months later by the sudden death of his father. One of the ways he kept his sanity in the dark months that followed was to work–and for Duda, “work” was creating music. Fractured is an album of words, a story of the struggle to regain the light. There is only one short instrumental track; all the rest of the songs give a disconcertingly intimate look at a man determined to get himself back on track and shake off–with variable success–the overwhelming grief and pain of profound loss. At first he considered releasing it under his own name, MD, but ultimately chose to situate it as a Lunatic Soul album, a prequel to Walking on a Flashlight Beam. 

Musically the album also departs: the lush atmospheric washes of the previous albums are almost entirely absent, replaced by a sound that is stark, open, ragged, with lots of acoustic guitar, sparse electronic accents, and even an orchestra. Most importantly though, we are introduced to something brand new: the sound of the piccolo bass. This is not a modified bass but a bespoke instrument, created by Mariusz’s Polish luthier especially for him, and it has proved to be a game-changer. It allows him to play in his beloved higher registers and create heavy, buzzy sounds somewhere between bass and guitar without violating his promise to never use electric guitar in the project. This instrument has taken on a significant role in the sound of both Lunatic Soul and Riverside, and it may well be unique in prog. 

Upside: Fractured introduced many Riverside fans to Lunatic Soul, and it is among the most popular of the LS releases. It is a beautifully conceived, deeply emotional album and I can fully understand how so many fans engage with it, both musically and especially lyrically. One of my favourite songs across Mariusz Duda’s entire output is “Anymore”, a heartbreakingly intimate glimpse into a family relationship. 

Downside: However…I must admit that this is not my favourite Lunatic Soul album, and that is because it does not feel like a Lunatic Soul album to me. The Hero and the author have become inextricably intertwined with each other: it is so clearly about Duda himself that the connection to the original protagonist is lost. It is an album that works in isolation, but not so much as part of the project. 

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 →