Review Summary: Wake Up Honey! The New Lunar Album’s Out!
Beginning as an
Opeth copy-cat band,
Lunar came from humble origins; not until their sophomore album did the band’s sound experience an explosion of other influences - partly as a vigilant response to the unexpected passing of band member Ryan Erwin.
Lunar’s core music signature has traditionally been described as a kind of melting pot inspired by all your favorite progressive metal bands (Think of what combining
Opeth,
Haken,
Caligula’s Horse,
Dream Theater,
Ayreon, and
Tool would sound like). Yet, it would seem like
Lunar decided to hone down their sound quite a bit for the album in question,
Tempora Mutantur, focusing nearly exclusively on combining
Haken’s early 2010s style of zanier riffage with
Opeth’s low-pitched, dirty growls and Deliverance-era repetitive, almost dissonant jam interludes.
I have always been quite fond of
Lunar’s riff-centric songwriting, as they continue to produce distorted riffs and tasty licks that dominate the foreground. They utilize wackier
Haken-ish riffs and bouncy drumming to introduce “A Summer to Forget” and “Spring in My Step,” while the heavier
Opeth-inspired sections are used to pay off the song’s climaxes with absolutely impressive guttural and drumming performances. The track “Tempora Mutantur Part II - Broken Pendulum” is another example of a stellar use of complex, heavy, and repetitive instrumental harmonies. While
Tempora Mutantur is no doubt the heaviest
Lunar album, it’s clear that the band renders a playful contrast between their more upbeat, jazzy, prog-ridden, and often funky intervals and their simply brutal death metal passages.
It’s no coincidence that
Lunar had this record mastered by Fascination Street Studios, the same company that did Watershed, arguably the progressive death metal album about contrast. Furthermore,
Tempora Mutantur sounds as professional as it does because of the involvement with this great studio; essentially, the band’s best produced, mixed, and mastered album naturally hosts their heaviest sonic material. The modern metal philosopher ponders: Is this album the heaviest because of its expensive mastery or does this album have its expensive mastery because it is the heaviest?
Depending on one’s perspective, this is just as much a criticism as it is a compliment to
Lunar’s general songwriting approach here as opposed to albums prior: they decided to run with a more “stream of consciousness” style rather than a straightforward or unified one for most of the songs. Indeed, nearly all of the songs on the album are actually made up of many smaller concepts sewn together through the power of progressive tempo shifts. I rather quite enjoyed the two songs on the album that were built with more straightforward intentions; “Weakening Winter Touch” and “Seasonal Interlude” felt significantly more cohesive than the rest. Nonetheless, I struggle to complain when those musically independent concepts hugged tightly together are all generally excellent on their own. This makes snapshots of this album universally pleasant even though the diachronic experience needs work. Nonetheless, big prog metal bands like
Between the Buried and Me made careers off of songwriting like this which is why I wanted to preface this criticism as perhaps a mere preference. In any case, I am firm in my belief that
Lunar’s best material has been made with focused sonic concepts: “Comfort,” “The Illusionist,” and “Disassembled” come to mind.
Marking their fourth full-length album, I’m happy to conclude that
Lunar continues to produce music that very consistently delivers in quality. On
Tempora Mutantur, they’ve honed their stylistic influences on a few ideas while treading on looser territory with their songwriting approach.
Lunar has brought us a bevy of solid riffs to indulge in with a studio that, I hope in this economy, didn’t cost the band as much as they sound like they do. As time passes and the seasons continue to change I hope
Lunar is still in the game for another four releases.
