Review: Luna's Call - VOID - The Progressive Subway

Style: Death/Extreme Prog Metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Dylan
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 28-08-2020

So… This is certainly on a very high tier of complexity. A quick listen of VOID while paying half of your attention to it will leave you wondering what the hell did you just go through. It really just goes to town with the ”prog” in ”prog-death” and delivers an album that took me a fair amount of listens before I could even write a sentence about it. I plowed through it, hoping that I would eventually be writing how this album is a grower, a sophisticated piece of art, something that’s really worth sinking your teeth into…

And it is with an abundance of joy that I can inform that my time was not wasted by Luna’s Call, and their sophomore album meets all of the descriptions I once hoped to say about it while I was still struggling with its complexity and depth.

Luna’s Call play a very eclectic style of music. With a clear inspiration from Opeth they find themselves throwing in harsh death metal sections followed by cleaner acoustic segments. However, they don’t also shy away from the idea of mixing their death metal elements with some very interesting (clean) layered vocals, sort of similar to latter Opeth albums like Pale Communion. It really is a hard album to explain, every second there’s something happening, and it can rapidly change to another style or mood completely multiple times within one track. But the formula itself, a quirky eclectic death metal album that builds up on acoustic cleans and climaxes on death harshes, is a style that has been around as early as 1995. So if you’re at all familiar with it, you’re bound to understand what they’re going for. But this very popular formula has seen amazing successes and epic fails, so how does VOID manage to avoid the latter?

Pacing. That’s the key to this album. A quick look at the track list’s length tells you everything; It usually builds up to it’s gigantic tracks and then offers plenty of time for you to take a breath in between the album’s juggernauts. The most complex and complete track, ”Solar Immolation” is not only built up by it’s two predeceasing tracks, but also accompanied by a lovely acoustic piece after it, that not only relaxes your ears, but pleases them with a very warm and pleasant track.

All of the aforementioned qualities plus a kick-ass production, amazing vocal quality, catchy (yet complex) riffs, well integrated keyboards, and just a great sense of melody in general, make VOID a strong AOTY contender for me for 2020. This is an absolute must listen to anyone even sort of interested in progressive metal.

---

Recommended tracks: Solar Inmolation, Locus
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Rivers of Nihil, Native Construct
Final verdict: 9.2/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Luna’s Call is:

– Brad Laver (bass, vocals)
– Neil Purdy (vocals, guitars)
– Jamie Batt (drums, vocals)
– Liam Underdown (guitars)