LUX OCCULTA

If you´re familiar with the avant-garde extreme metal sound of "The Mother and the Enemy", you´ll know that Lux Occulta occasionally toyed with both jazz, electronic music, and trip-hop parts during that otherwise quite extreme and black/death metal oriented release ("Yet Another Armageddon" is for example a fully fledged female vocal-led trip-hop track) and on "Kołysanki" those elements are the dominant ones. You´ll find metal oriented sections here and there, but "Kołysanki" is predominantly not a heavy metal oriented release (although raw shouted vocals and a few distorted guitar riffs do appear on occasion). The tracks are quite experimental and feature a lot of interesting vocals (often in Polish) and effects. Regular vers/chorus structures aren´t really Lux Occulta´s thing. It´s not easy listening music by any means and it´s some of the more experimental works of an artist like Ulver I´m reminded of and also 70s progressive/experimental music artists like Robert Wyatt and Hugh Hopper (of course in a more contemporary setting).

It´s definitely an interesting, darkly atmospheric, and avant-garde oriented music release and it´s quite bold considering that Lux Occulta after all released four metal oriented albums before this one. I guess you could say that you were warned after listening to "The Mother and the Enemy", but "Kołysanki" does after all take the experimental ideas in a completely different direction and add other textures and jazzy electronic elements to them, so you are excused if you find this a confusing album. Confusing in this case means great, bold, and adventurous, and it´s obvious from the sound production, to the performances, and the intriguing compositions that Luc Occulta have struck gold and a 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

While a more abstract avant-garde direction was sometimes heard on "My Guardian Anger" (Lux Occulta´s third full-length studio album from November 1999), Lux Occulta have opted to take that direction all the way on "The Mother and the Enemy". The music is still somewhat in the symphonic black metal mold (although it´s now just one element of the band´s sound), but the abrupt tempo- and time signature changes and changes in riff style and atmospheres combined with quite a few creative and unconventional songwriting ideas (how about a jazzy saxophone break during "Architecture" or a fully fledged female vocal-led trip-hop track in "Yet Another Armageddon"), have arguably taken Luc Occulta in an avant-garde black/death metal direction. Some of the things happening on this album really shouldn´t work, but because Lux Occulta are as skilled and clever as they are, they sometimes make odd musical ideas work really well within the context of their relatively extreme and at times quite technical black/death metal sound.

"The Mother and the Enemy" features a powerful, raw, and detailed sound production, which suits the material well. "My Guardian Anger" was a great album in its own right, but Lux Occulta have stepped up in all departments on this album and "The Mother and the Enemy" is therefore an excellent avant-garde extreme metal release on all parameters. A 4 star (80%) rating is fully deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

Stylistically the material on "My Guardian Anger" is symphonic black metal, but it´s quite different from the symphonic black metal style found on the two preceding Lux Occulta album releases. Lux Occulta have opted for a much heavier, riff oriented, and varied black/death metal style to be the basis of the music while the symphonic keyboards add texture on top along with the snarling black metal vocals and occasional death metal growling. It´s quite busy music and the soundscape is often chaotic and furiously fast-paced and blasting. There´s also a progressive edge to the songwriting and "My Guardian Anger" contains just about everything the first two albums didn´t...

...professional sound production values, intriguing and varied compositions, and above all high level musicianship. It´s not that you´ll find much here that you haven´t heard other symphonic black metal bands bring to the table, but the flawless performances and the creative songwriting make up for a lot of that. "My Guardian Anger" is a high quality release from Lux Occulta and to my ears it feels like a rebirth of the band after the first two relatively anonymous albums. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

Stylistically the material on "Dionysos" continues the symphonic black metal style of "Forever Alone, Immortal", but this time with more focus on the symphonic keyboards. It´s still pretty raw and basic black metal underneath the symphonic keyboards and the vocals are also pretty standard blackened snarling (with the occasional death metal grunt appearing to make the vocals more varied). Although Lux Occulta don´t reach the heights of Cradle of Filth, it´s the more well known British band I´m often reminded of while listening to "Dionysos".

While "Dionysos" is only slightly more professional and interesting than "Forever Alone, Immortal", there has been a lift in quality since the rather amatuerish debut album. "Dionysos" may not be the most intriguing or the most creative symphonic black metal album out there, but it´s overall a decent release featuring a decent quality sound production, relatively strong musicianship, and decent (but not excellent) songwriting, and a 2.5 star (50%) rating isn´t all wrong.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

Stylistically the material on "Forever Alone, Immortal" is a raw but keyboard heavy (atmospheric and at times symphonic) type of black metal. The vocals alternate between black metal snarling, death metal grunts, and some almost hysterical desparate sounding vocals. The sound production is pretty lo-fi and the whole release have an air of amateurism surrounding it. This sounds more like a demo than a full-length studio album released through a label.

The tracks are relatively long (two of them exceeding 10 minutes in length), but most tracks feature a lot of repetition of riffs and rhythms, so it´s not the most challenging or creative black metal release out there (although folky progressive rock sections with flute and cello do appear and provide some variation). The musicianship is a bit below par too, so upon conclusion this isn´t exactly a promising start for Lux Occulta and a 2 - 2.5 star (45%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

The material here is pretty strong, considering much of it was a demo. The recording quality is better than one would expect of a black metal demo; highlights include both versions of "Love", "Passing Away", and "The Path (You've Found)". All of this material is likely to be interesting to fans of black metal.

The problem here is that most of this material is now also available on reissues of the band's older albums. The Forgotten Arts was also included on a reissue of Dionysos; "Burn" was included on a reissue of Forever Alone, Immortal; "Heart of the Devil" and "Love (Garden of Aphrodite)" were included (albeit with the titles swapped) on a reissue of My Guardian Anger. If you don't have those reissues, this material is worth tracking down; if you do, "When Horned Souls Awake" probably isn't enough to justify the purchase of the CD on its own.

This material is somewhat more melodic than one would typically expect of black metal, but it's nonetheless still black metal, with plenty of blast beats and the requisite harsh vocals one would expect from the genre (though "Nude Sophia" also includes clean female vocals). It's also never anything less than spellbinding. Highlights include "The Opening of Eleventh Sephirah", the aforementioned "Nude Sophia", and "Mane-Tekel-Fares", but all eight songs on the original album are superb and strongly recommended.

The 2001 reissue by Metal Mind includes two bonus tracks which can also be found on the band's Maior Arcana compilation, one of which is a Danzig cover and the other of which is a reworked version of a song from their demo. They are not quite up to the standard of the original eight songs on the album but nonetheless worth hearing. Note that the packaging for the album mislabels both songs, although Prog Archives has the song titles mostly right; "Heart of the Devil" is track nine and "Love (Garden of Aphrodite)" is track ten (Prog Archives omits the subtitle, despite the fact that there is a different version of the track titled only "Love" that appears on the band's demo).

A lot of people only know Lux Occulta (Latin for "hidden light") as "that side project of Martin and Vogg from Decapitated." This is a shame, because while Decapitated are unquestionably one of the best straight-up death metal acts recording today, Lux Occulta record music of a complexity and intensity that puts even that band's repertoire to shame. My Guardian Anger was a simmering, unholy slab of progressive black metal the likes of which has seldom been heard before and is unlikely to be heard again for quite some time, and this album takes its blueprint and expands on it in every direction imagineable.

Lux Occulta have always been one of the more experimental black metal acts out there, but this album comes as a complete shock upon first listen. It doesn't get much easier on subsequent listens, either; this is difficult subject matter the band are treating here. The mother of the title is Mother Nature, and the enemy is the human race. Several tracks explicitly detail the disintegration of the planet, featuring horrors Biblical in scope of humanity's own making. The music is suitably dark to match, even for Lux Occulta; while My Guardian Anger and previous efforts contained considerable amounts of melodicism for a band this heavy, this album eschews melody almost entirely. The music is more complex than before, as well; Lux Occulta have firmly planted themselves in the math-metal camp of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah et al. with this release, to the point where it becomes clear why they've had such difficulty finding a replacement drummer (percussionist Kriss departed after this record): there are very few people who could play this music.

If anything is in danger of sinking the record, it's the diversity of the tracks here, but after repeated listens the song order begins to make a bit more sense. Unquestionably the highlight of the album, and possibly of the band's entire career, is "Missa Solemnis," which is as good of a career summary as I can imagine for the band's trajectory thus far; other choice cuts include "Mother Pandora," "Architecture," and the three trip-hop numbers (namely, "Yet Another Armageddon," "Midnight Crisis," and "Breathe Out"), which are excellent. I would recommend starting with My Guardian Anger, which might be a stronger record, but this album should not be overlooked. Just don't expect to comprehend it after one listen, or even ten.

(Review originally written for Last.FM and later posted at Metal Archives)

Poland's erstwhile black metal band Lux Occulta opted for the latter option. While there are a few metallic moments on this album, they are few and far between, and they have far more to do with industrial metal than they do with black metal (what's more, the trademark harsh vocals of the genre are almost nowhere to be found). The non-metal parts of the band's previous record, The Mother and the Enemy, offer vague clues to some of the places the band have taken their sound (avant-garde jazz, electronica), but more of the record is new ground entirely. Not just for the band, but for music itself. The list of genres on Wikipedia gives you a vague idea what you're in for ("electronic rock, free jazz, avant-garde rock/metal, spoken word"), as does the list of instruments (which includes accordion, violin, trumpet, double bass, and cajón), but even that won't prepare you for how utterly weird this album is. Where else can you hear accordions and violins duel with industrial guitar riffs and samples of Polish folk music? The diversity of this album bears mention as well. While the album maintains a consistent atmosphere throughout, not one song sounds like any other, and in fact even within the same song you will frequently hear a wide range of stylistic ground covered.

There is nothing else like this album in existence, and it is a mind trip like little else you will hear this year or any other. Strongly recommended.