ALBUM REVIEW: Through Shaded Woods – Lunatic Soul

The latest release from one-man musical project LUNATIC SOUL is an exquisite blend of Northern folk and progressive metal with a strong Viking influence. Through Shaded Woods is an album more of atmosphere than specific song detail, but the atmosphere which Mariusz Duda creates is powerful, and nostalgic for a time which seems so far away from our own. However, it seems that the ex-prog rocker somehow lost his way during the making of this album. So, let’s see where he went wrong.

Navvie, the closest thing this album has to a commercial single, is an absolutely joyous way to open the album. The accompanying music video for this song really does perfectly encapsulate the feelings it will conjure in the listener – you’re in the woods, there’s an irresistible beat, and you simply have to dance. Best listened to on a full moon, this one.

The Passage is an absolute outlier on this album. Bringing in more progressive metal as a homage to Duda’s earlier career, the heaviness and complex rhythmical evolutions actually make this song seem a little out of place on an otherwise pretty folksy-leaning release. It’s not a bad song by any means – to the contrary, this style of prog metal suits LUNATIC SOUL so well, it got us wishing for more of this on the album. As it stands, it’s an interesting addition to the tracklisting, one which doesn’t quite make sense.

Summoning Dance opens like a pretty standard singer-songwriter track and definitely is the weakest on the album. The lyrics are quite weak throughout this track, which relies on cliched metaphor quite consistently. Even towards the end of the track, where the instrumentation descends more into the “dance” like rhythms which the title suggested, it seems quite contrived and fails to transcend their quiet folks-y roots.

Overall, Through Shaded Woods is truly a mixed bag of an album. Top-heavy, the first two tracks are really lovely, illustrating two opposing ways this artist explores the many-layered darkness of the folk metal – via embracing the Northern folk influence, or straying into progg-ier territory. Sadly, the album doesn’t hold up throughout its runtime, and will leave the listener wishing the album had just been an EP instead.

Rating: 6/10

Through Shaded Woods is out now via Kscope.

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