https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...lightBeam.jpeg
Title: Walking On a Flashlight Beam
Artiste: Lunatic Soul
Year 2014
Nationality: Polish
Genre: Progressive Rock
Rank: Novice
4

Expectations: This is actually a good time for me to review this, as I just recently made a reasonably successful effort to get into Riverside through my Prog journal, and this is the side project of their bassist, vocalist and frontman, Mariusz Duda. I've heard his debut self-titled album but neither of the two to follow that, so there's something of a gap in my knowledge of Lunatic Soul.

1. Shutting out the sun: A gradual start, so quiet initially that, having just recently had major problems with my PC, I had to confirm the sound was working. It is, but it's about a minute and a half into the track before you can discern any real sound. Song is fairly ambient though with some interesting percussion, almost tribal at times.
2. Cold: Unsurprisingly there's a great, hypnotic bassline running through this. Still fairly low-key though. Builds up nicely.
3. Gutter: A little more tension in this one. Still waiting for him to really break out though. Nice sense of almost soul near the end. Becomes quite catchy.
4. Stars sellotaped: Very short instrumental. It's ok I guess, bit short to really get any sense of it.
5. The fear within: Very ambient, very nice but very repetitive.
6. Treehouse: This has a little more punch, though only a little. Nice melody though.
7. Pygmalion's ladder: Of course, being prog rock there is an epic, and this is it. Twelve minutes and change, with a nice Arabian type motif running through it. Much of it, as you would expect, is instrumental, with some very good keyboard arpeggios and runs. Nice and relaxing, which is in fact something of a problem, as this album seems to be all low-key and introspective, and it gets just a little samey.
8. Sky drawn in crayon: I have to admit, this one passed me by.
9. Walking on a flashlight beam: A decent closer, though if I'm honest kind of more of the same. No surprises, that's for sure.

Final result: Yeah, this is going to be a hard sell. Really only for Riverside fanatics or aficionados of Mariusz. I like it, but as a prog album it's very gentle and laidback, with hardly any real rocky moments, and often comes across more as a sort of folk/prog hybrid.

Rating: http://www.trollheart.com/hphone.gifhttp://www.trollheart.com/hphone.gifhttp://www.trollheart.com/hphone.gif