|
If you ever find this CD in your local
recordstore chances are you will take it from the progressive rock
section (if ever they have one !) and place it in the dance section
as the sleeve really has not the slightest link to glorious prog.
Musically the first couple of tracks are not a giveaway either but
as the album progresses so does the music. Also the label could be a
bit of a clue being Market Square Music. In the end I think an
accurate description of Luminos’ music has to be a cross between
Jadis and Mr. So & So. As the band has two vocalists, one male and
one female, of course references tend to come and go with the timbre
of their voices. Neville Dean sometimes comes in the area of Gary
Chandler whilst Anni Meehan gets close to Druid’s Dane Stevens in
the higher regions brining along some authentic seventies
resemblances on occasion.
From a rhythmic point of view we have
to place Luminos under the neo-prog label as most of the songs are
straightforwarded rock with a slight prog tendency. Take ‘If only
for a while’ as prime example of the latter. However this approach
most certainly means the band gets offered more opportunities to gig
because their music is more mainstream, more accessible and thus
ideal to reach a wider audience. By mixing acoustic and subtle
electric guitars a song like ‘It’s your turn to fly’ gets a certain
medieval charm to it before Anni Meehan takes the song into a
different direction slightly evoking Fruupp’s ‘Gormenghast’ whilst
Neville Dean sounds a little like Elvis Costello here. Flute and
distorted guitar also embrace the psychedelic feel combined with
folk turning this song towards the free spirit sixties. It is during
‘The voyage’ that I hear vocal resemblances with the more
underground band Druid. Backed by a rather laidback backing track
it’s the unpredicted jazzy saxophone which shortly introduces some
Soft Machine magic flirting with ‘Welcome to the machine’ era Pink
Floyd.
I’m
convinced that ‘prog’ to the members of Luminos does not necessary
mean copying the licks and riffs from the seventies as ‘Living on
the edge of time’ even includes some genuine reggae riffs before
evolving into a wild rocking anthem. With ‘Angel’ the band harks
back to the folky sixties reminiscing the originality of the Mamas &
Papas. But the real pearl in the Luminos oyster comes at the very
end by means of the superb ‘Always in my heart’. Although I don’t
see a string section mentioned in the liner notes I clearly hear
violins and cello which really become the heart of the song, a song
with clear psychedelic roots. It’s the kind of song which would
benefit so much from a real huge orchestra which could make this
song build and build with every chorus in order to end as an
absolute masterpiece. As it is it becomes a small masterpiece but
impressive enough to make us more and more curious about this band
as the second part of their album “Seize the day” (or the English
for Carpe Diem) sounds rather different and intriguing than the more
direct songs in the beginning. |
