Lux Eterna - Lux Eterna

Year of Release: 2001
Label: Solaris Music
Catalog Number: n/a
Format: CD
Total Time: 62:08:00

"Lux Eterna (author - Stas Berdnikov) is a massive wall of orchestral and choir sound with a loudness of rock band. All presented songs are taken from sympho metal suite Lux Eterna."

"Being fans of Queen, Pink Floyd, ELP and many other great bands, we want to achieve their highest level of mastery."

The above quotes are from the band. This is quite an interesting piece of music from this Russian project. Apparently Mike Novikov is the musical brainchild behind the entire disc, and plays all of the instruments. It's definitely a "sympho metal suite," although true metal heads might debate this somewhat. The music sounds more like a heavier type of techno / prog rock if that makes sense. Basically, the suite is built around massive, swirling, Pink Floyd-like keyboards, with a lot of techno sounds injected. The guitars are metal based; somewhat in the same style as Edenbridge, but the rest of the music is pretty much based on prog rock sounds more so than metal. Overall it's very progressive, with each song representing a different style of music, including some pretty Spanish / acoustic guitar passages, with bells, harps, strings, and just about any sound that a keyboard can make these days. The production is good - although I'll bet Mike Novikov, given his many talents, did it. It does sound like it was produced by someone's own equipment rather than in a studio, but it sounds full and rich with the many sounds given the orchestrations. As the disc moves forward, it's easy to hear that progressive rock based structured songs surrounded by a metal style guitar, and it works well.

The problem most will have with this disc is the vocals. The few songs that the female sings on are done well and are very pleasant to listen to. I'm still not sure at this point if the lyrics are in English, but I'm guessing that they are. The male singer is a bit tough to handle. He has a very strong, thick Russian accent, and his words are impossible to distinguish between Russian and English, and his tone is not pleasing at all either.

Given the various musical styles that this disc is based on, it's very well done and quite interesting. I'm not sure which crowd this will appeal to, but I'd put it in the prog rock camp before I put it in the metal camp. With a different singer, this might have some potential, although if you don't mind a thick Russian accent and a somewhat monotone singer, this might draw some attention. A very interesting release indeed from a country certainly not known for their progressive musical contributions.

Tracklisting:
Genesis (4:32) / Boiling Earth (4:25) / Birth Of Nature (3:24) / Flight Of Soul (5:25) / Breeze (4:09) / Love (3:43) / Nations (6:33) / Envy (3:29) / Spirit Of War (3:57) / Invasion (4:52) / Apocalypse (4:40) / Lux Eterna (4:19)

Musicians:
Mike Novikov - all instruments
Yury Zlokazov - guitars
Stas Berdnikov - vocal
Irene Meshkova - vocal

Discography:
Various Artists - The Songs Of Solaris ()
Lux Eterna (2001)

Genre: Progressive-Power Metal

Origin RU

Added: March 9th 2002
Reviewer: Larry "LarryD" Daglieri

Artist website: www.myspace.com/luxeterna
Hits: 2318
Language: english