Album Review: Luna's Call - Void
Reviewed by Paul Hutchings
You really should stop whatever you are doing and ensure that you get your listening equipment around ‘Void’, the long awaited follow up to 2016’s Divinity from Lincolnshire’s progressive death metal outfit Luna’s Call. This is one of the most astonishingly delicious and absorbing releases of recent years.
Technically mind-blowing, the album’s two-minute opener ‘Merced’s Footsteps’ is a mere tantalising morsel to tease the taste buds before the feast. A combination of clean vocals and death growls, huge time changes and an impressive production (courtesy of Russ Russell (At The Gates, Napalm Death, Amorphis)) throughout, Luna’s Call really begin to flex their creative muscles on second track ‘Signs’. More time changes than a GWR timetable, the band flow with ease between raging darkness, passages of soaring light and eclectic progressive rock with neo-classical elements. Complex, intricate and confident in a way few bands can manage, ‘Signs’ sees the band utilise rich synths, fiery riffs and huge swathes of melody to create a majestic soundscape.
If ‘Signs’ was impressive, the following track is just mesmerising. ‘Solar Immolation’ combines elements of Opeth, Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, Godsticks, Enslaved and Devin Townsend in a magnificent 13-minute epic. Twisting and turning from the opening bars, it contains everything. Ferocious death metal, gentle keyboards, and almost sonic space rock. It’s a magical, weaving journey which needs to be sampled repeatedly. The band have the audacity to follow such a piece of work with a track of pure genius. The melancholically experimental ‘Enceladus & The Life Inside’ features sweet vocal harmonies, sweeping synths, acoustic almost baroque type guitar work and a gentle orchestral conclusion which provides time to revel in the majesty of it all. And then you realise, in a moment of discovery, that there are still four tracks to go!
Dive deep into ‘Locus’, a progressive, jazzy death metal extravaganza, with piledriving bass, precision drumming and a slide from clean vocals to demonic roars in the blink of an eye. Luna’s Call are often compared to the mighty Opeth and this is a song that warrants such a complimentary analogy. True blasting riffage follows on ‘In Bile They Bath’, at first listen a more straightforward track but on further examination it’s as layered and textured as the other tracks, just in a different manner.
‘Void’ themes focus on observing the Earth’s environmental destruction from the vastness of outer space. Another band that have grasped the challenges facing our planet, it’s clear that there is deep thought in the construction of this album. It’s measured, balanced, and perfectly constructed. The contrast between penultimate song ‘Silverfish’, a short and delicate instrumental and the closing opus ‘Fly Further Cosmonaut’ merely serve to demonstrate how important Luna’s Call have become to the UK metal scene. Complex, ambitious, dynamic, epic. Four words to describe one of the best albums of the year. This really is special, and it is with quiet desperation that I wait for live music to return. These songs will be incredible when we finally get to hear them live. We can but hope. In the meantime, immerse yourself in ‘Void’ and you can thank me afterwards.
Void is released on 28th August.
