Have you ever heard an album, then looked at the band/album name and thought that someone is really taking the biscuit? There are several dictionary definitions for the word Lustre including ‘radiance or brilliance of light’ and ‘great splendour of accomplishment or beauty’ although I don’t hear much splendour or radiance in this release, and I don’t get much of a glimpse of glory either come to think of it. On paper this sounded right up my dimly-lit street, except if that were true then my street would be nothing more than a miserable alleyway of derelict buildings where the lights have been smashed open by vandals.
So the beginning seems a good place to start with ‘This Misty Sight,’ which opens with a forceful gust of wind that while certainly wild, fails to blow me away. This soon leads us to a rather sorrowful keyboard melody that plays out over layers of distortion, of course with Burzum being an obvious point of reference. The vocals don’t play a huge role on this album although we do hear some sporadic verses that come in the form of a harsh and indistinguishable rasp that suits the music nicely. The trouble is that the music just doesn’t seem to go anywhere. At times there’s an aimless, dreamy quality and I find it quite relaxing to a point, however the keyboards have that really naff, artificialness that I find so cringeworthy. It reminds me of a child getting his very first Casio keyboard and experimenting with all the sound effects which sound nothing like the actual instruments they are meant to sound like.
‘Lunar Light’ begins on a particularly dreary note and seems to prolong that note ad nauseum, trundling along with the pedestrian intent of a couple of middle aged ladies with walking sticks on shopping day. Suddenly some HOWWWWLLLLing wolves take us back into the wilderness, the wind picks up again and the birds are rattled and start kicking up a fuss all twittering to one another. Yes, it’s okay to have painfully duller than average music as long as it is thinly disguised behind a few samples that sound as though they’ve been pilfered from some programme presented by David Attenborough….
But wait – there’s more! Just when I think it’s all over and get up ready to change the disc I realise there’s another track to go and it’s more of the same…and it drifts along seemingly indefinitely. There’s a certain ambience to this music, although it’s in a very bland sense of the word as in the kind of background muzak you could expect to hear in certain hotel lobbies and lifts to make the customer feel relaxed. Anyway, the album has finished now and I’ve had enough so going to listen to something with a bit more lustre. On that note I’d be inclined to rename this band as [lack]lustre.
http://www.myspace.com/lustresweden
