Lunar Effect - Fortune's Always Hiding - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Obeng8Kwaku Kwaakye - Afrijazz [COMPACT DISCS] date 04/15/2003

Monument is a fitting title for the third album by Belarusian trio Molchat Doma. Indeed, it stands as a monument to everything they've achieved in their short time as a band, from whispered-about unknowns, to enigmatic underground icons, to legitimate viral sensations with hundreds of thousands of TikTok videos using their music. Monument sees them return as conquering heroes, expanding on the minimalist greatness of S Krysh Nashikh Domov and Etazhi to fully realize a more maximalist vision of their crystalline post-punk sound.Written and recorded while the band was quarantined in their hometown of Minsk during the COVID-19 pandemic, Monument is a conscious step up in songwriting and fidelity, and it reveals a band preternaturally comfortable in it's own skin. Whether playing to the dancefloor, as they do on the synthpop anthem InchDiscoteque,Inch or working more introspectively on pre-pandemic live favorites InchOtveta NetInch and InchNe Smeshno,Inch Molchat Doma are in complete control. Their greatest strength has always been their songwriting, and they've only gotten better.As the band's arrangements have grown more sophisticated, so too have the sounds they use to bring them to life. Roman Komogortsev and Pavel Kozlov's gear arsenal has grown to include an extensive range of synthesizers and drum machines, all of which they deploy with precision. Egor Shkutko's vocals move fluidly between his familiar deadpan monotone and an expressive croon, his beautifully delivered Russian lyrics at turns bleak and romantic. Shkutko has often been compared to Ian Curtis, but here, he outgrows the comparison. With Monument, Molchat Doma have done one of the hardest things to do as a band. They've greatly expanded the scope of their music while retaining everything that made them great in the first place.

Lunar Chamber, a hitherto unknown being of mysterious consciousness, now present in the physical realm for the first time with debut manifestation Shambhallic Vibrations, a tale of a journey eastward in search of enlightenment and what may lie beyond. Ensconced in mysticism, the five track nearly thirty minute pilgrimage advances unflinchingly through insane crushing riffs, bewildering solos, tranquil acoustics and illuminated ascendent melodies. InchSpirit Body And The Seeing SelfInch details the start of the journey, self analysis, and the attempts at launching oneself into said Inchbeyond,Inch while InchThe Bodhi TreeInch is a mirroring tale of Gautama Buddha himself, having meditated underneath it in Bodh Gaya approximately 2500 years ago, attaining enlightenment. InchIII. Crystalline Blessed Light Flows... From Violet Mountains Into Lunar Chamber'sInch is the ultimate pinnacle of the tale. Having reached a spiritual plane, pulses of light and dark; the very fabric of space-time itself churns. Knowledge is abundant here. Eventually, one is brought full circle, right back where everything began in normal life; albeit with a new sense of everything. But there is so much more to learn... a yearning thirst. Offering a deluge of jarringly brutal metal, overwhelming progressive physicality and instinctively accomplished memorability inspired by Buddhism, the East and esotericism, Lunar Chamber have just begun their quest of ascension and enlightened knowledge.