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Lunar Shadow: Wish To Leave

Melodic/Progressive/Hard Rock

5.0/5.0

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Cruz Del Sur Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 10.03.2021 | Released: 12.03.2021

Almost two years from the quite successful The Smokeless Fires, Lunar Shadow returns with their third long player, Wish To Leave. Created and guided by guitar savant Max Birbaum, the album finds the quintet once more blurring the lines of traditional heavy metal with the rhythm and groove of hard rock and complexity of progressive rock. All this with Birbaum's intricate and versatile acoustic and electric guitar work. All that's left to do is to toss in Birbaum's lyrical, sometimes dark, themes of life, loss, and relationships, the dark arts of Luciferianism, and a bit of sci-fi and sword and sorcery drama from Robert E. Howard, just to make things more quizzical.

Lunar Shadow

Mostly, mysterious lyrics aside, listeners should appreciate Lunar Shadow for their sophisticated, guitar-forward, melodic hard rock. If anything, with this album Birbaum has bumped up the rock rhythm and groove in most songs. You'll find and hear larger, more prominent, bass lines as the rhythm section propels a song. While this is notable across the entire album, the strong rock groove looms large within I Will Lose You and Serpents Die. Alternatively, wandering amidst the rhythm and groove, you'll find some songs to be quite fast and heavy, like traditional metal, with The Darkness Between The Stars or And Silence Screamed, both with more assertive vocals. Yet, both feature milder breakdowns featuring both acoustic and electric guitar. Speaking more specifically to Birbaum's guitar work, in songs like Delomelanicon and I Will Lose You, his guitar works has a Mark Knopfler timbre, or perhaps Knopfler and Rundgren. Speculation aside, it's enough to say that I enjoy Lunar Shadow simply for Birbaum's superb guitar craftsmanship. He's one of the best young guitarist of our time. All said, with Wish To Leave, Lunar Shadow delivers another compelling and creative album of guitar-forward melodic progressive rock, featuring Max Birbaum's fine song craftsmanship and imaginative guitar lines. Quite recommended.

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With Wish To Leave, Lunar Shadow delivers another compelling and creative album of guitar-forward melodic progressive rock, featuring Max Birbaum's fine craftsmanship and imaginative guitar lines. Quite recommended.

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The Powell Payne project, created in 2022 is the collaboration of Mark "Penfold Powell (ex-drummer of Psycho Kiss) and Adam Payne (former vocalist of Airrace). With guitarist Adam Davies and keyboard player ... [ Read More ]

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