LUNATIC SOUL

Lunatic Soul is the self-titled debut full-length studio album by Riverside vocalist/ bassist Mariusz Duda´s project Lunatic Soul. The project also features members of other notable Polish progressive rock acts like Indukti and Quidam in addition to Mariusz Duda´s fellow Riverside collegue Michal Lapaj on Hammond Organ.

The music on the album is quite different from the heavy, melodic and memorable Riverside songwriting style and it seems that Mariusz Duda has focused on a more simple, introvert and dark style on this album. The style also happens to be ambient and repetitive at times which is a feature in the music I don´t enjoy much. The melodies can also seem a bit too monotenous to my ears and thereby the songs lose some memorability IMO. The instrumentation on the album is pretty organic with no electric guitar, lots of percussion, acoustic guitar, flute, piano and organ. Mariusz Duda is a great singer but he doesn´t show much here IMO. His approach is rather subdued compared to his usual style. All the bickering aside the songs are well written and professionally performed I just don´t enjoy the style of music much.

The musicianship is overall excellent and the album is very well produced which means that it has a very warm and pleasant sound.

Lunatic Soul is not as impressive or exciting as I had expected and I can´t help to feel a bit disappointed. It´s probably unfair to compare the music on this album with the high quality progressive rock/ metal on Riverside´s albums, but as Lunatic Soul features half of the lineup from that band it´s hard not to do just that. Lunatic Soul deserves a 3 star rating from me as I acknowledge that it is a quality album that just doesn´t suit my taste.