Tech Death Thursday: Luna’s Call
Today we get spoopy with Luna’s Call. It’s Tech Death Thursday!
First, some not-so-spoopy news:
- Hong Kong-based Karmacipher have a new single out. No word yet on a full album, but your ever-faithful tech scout will keep an ear to the ground.
- Deceptionist, subject of one of the very first Tech Death Thursdays, have an album on the way. Give this tantalizing teaser a listen and look for Initializing Irreversible Process on June 17th.
- *sigh* Indonesian tech death, ladies and gentleman.
- On a less stupid note, Abnormality have a new song streaming over at NCS. If you can stop banging your head for long enough to read the screen, they’ve also got dates for their upcoming tour with Soulfly, Suffocation, Battlecross, and Lody Kong.
- I’m convinced that there’s a factory somewhere in Germany that produces killer tech bands, because another new one just popped up with a crushing demo. Check out Peripheral Cortex and let them feel the love of the Toilet.
- “Verb the Noun” band names are getting progressively dumber, but in Sanctify the Serpent’s case, the music more than holds up. Give their debut EP a listen right here.
Progressive death metal is an incredibly diverse genre. It’s very easy to grab a handful of bands and have none of them sound alike. Experimentation is the name of the game, with each artist striving to achieve a sound that has never been heard before. Luna’s Call are such a band, and for better or worse, they have succeeded in their endeavor to be unique.
Now, there’s one major complaint I have with Divinity that I want to get out of the way right off the bat. It was one of the first things to strike me and continued to bother me for the first half of the album or so. The transitions on some of these songs, particularly on the first three, come suddenly and without warning. While there are plenty of bands out there that can pull this off effortlessly, in some cases on Divinity, it comes off feeling like more of a riff salad. It’s not that the riffs don’t make sense next to each other from a technical standpoint(i.e. sixteenth notes at 150 BPM are the same speed as eighth note triplets at about 190 BPM), but they change feeling without a sense of flow. It’s the same reason I don’t care for Death; it’s a stylistic choice that I get, and I know some people like it, but it’s just too incoherent for me to get into it.
Of course, if I didn’t like this record, I wouldn’t be featuring it in the first place. The riffs on those first few songs kept me interested despite their jarring passage. Luna’s Call have a very interesting sound to which I can’t draw a decent comparison. There are parts that sound kind of like Opeth, but only distantly related through a similar sense of foreboding. There are parts that sound like early melodeath, but not quite like any band that was active at the time. For the most part, the band is their own animal entirely, utilizing plenty of melodic hooks, classical acoustic passages, Ryan Knight-esque solos, and even a jazz flute to create a sound that is uniquely them. It’s all topped off with a pervasive strange atmosphere and some absolutely stunning clean vocals.
Divinity is an album that rewards the patient listener. In spite of my initial hesitation to continue, it ended up hooking me me in and dragging me under. After multiple listens, I find myself forgetting more and more of my complaints and simply enjoying the music. It’s a truly unique album that should not be missed.
Divinity is out now and available for purchase here. Luna’s Call can be found on Facebook; be sure to swing by and yell some toilet-related nonsense at them. That’s all for this week, and until next time,
(Image VIA)
