This is The first physical release by Brazilian musician Putrefactus after a few digital only ones and as the title suggests this is very much of the cosmic black metal variety. Even from the opening note, there is a huge wave of Midnight Odyssey pushing in at you before it spreads out and settles down into something a little more of itself. The sounds here are distinctly smooth, a keyboard wash of sedate waves cruising through the solar system and checking in with five lengthy passages. They fit together seamlessly and the production is gentle enough to let them circle and dance in occasional little eddies of sound and vibration.
You do question yourself with music such as this, wondering exactly where apart from the slightly lower in the mix harsh vocals the black metal connections actually are. A great deal of the soft, lilting synth waves wouldn’t be out of place in a Lonely Robot album for example and the overall feel is gentle, bright introspection with just a touch of melancholy peeking out now and then. There is nothing cold or harsh or unfeeling here, and when the vocals are absent, as they are for great tracts of this travelogue what we have left is a pleasant, graceful journey seemingly full of bright eyes wonder. It’s odd because with the works of Dis Pater I still always feel the connection to black metal. With Lumnos I just want to let the connection go.
So what we have here, then, is a nicely put together album of shining celestial keyboard based prog with just an occasional backwards glance towards distant black metal roots, a graceful and gentle twirl around Saturn to watch the centuries turn by and fall to dust. It’s quite lovely in its own way and if you fancy a flight in the gentle side, you could do a lot worse.
(6.5/10 Gizmo)
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