LUX TERMINUS

Fans of instrumental music and pianos, may I have your attention please because here is an album that may keep you entertained for a very long time and I'm a bit surprised that it has slipped through the cracks. The band is the brainchild of Vikram Shankar and it is based in the USA. Everything revolves around the pianos of this much-talented musician who although is a shredder (consider the solo on Effusion) his main target is to write actual music and not solo over some chords. Did I mention there are no guitars here except a solo on the epic title-track? Who needs them anyway? It's pianos, drums and bass only, but somehow they manage to sound as a "full" band and not one- dimentional and boring. Granted, some songs are more inspired than others like the title-track which expands over 20 minutes and still it flows so naturally, the driving and versatile Miles Away or the soulful The Road Home (III). On the down side Spectral Shapes isn't something memorable (but then again, one can take it an extended intro to The Road Home (III)) and the final song Epilogue differs to all others since it features the vocals of the very Anneke van Giersbergen, but it it's totally uninteresting (it was wise, after all, to place it in the end where it doesn't ruin the flow). On a larger scale, the drums, to my ears, are a bit up-front in the mix but eventually I got used to that, although things could be better. Still, it is the inspiration that, as always, comes first and here is around in spades.