Following on heels of the Polish big two VADER and BEHEMOTH comes LUX OCCULTA, who’ve been establishing a name for themselves in underground circles in recent years. The Mother And The Enemy, released by new Portuguese label Maquiavel Music, is the band’s fourth effort to date, and is apparently ‘an album so mature that it may well take the rest of the competition years to catch up’.

Upon listening to The Mother… it quickly becomes obvious, that the above statement, along with numerous others in the info, are testament more to the imaginations of the Maquiavel marketing department, though.

The opening track, Breathe In, is chaotic Black Metal, with a poor guitar sound, strange keyboard effects, and the drums and bass too high in the mix. The band has also tried to incorporate numerous jazz elements into their music, the end result being pointlessly complex songs, and unlistenable music. There’s just no continuity anywhere, either in or between the ten songs.

Yet Another Armageddon and Gambit are just boring, Gambit, in particular, with its repetitive riff possibly aiming for MINISTRY type feel, but not at all coming off. Midnight Crisis is some kind of lounge music, like something you’d hear in a bar for suicidal singles, with a soft drum beat, sparse piano and miserable female vocals.

After a lull during the middle part of the album, Pied Piper begins immediately with furious Black Metal vocals, taking elements of KÕNG with their crazy psychedelic riffs and effects, and putting them in a BM context, but failing dreadfully and after five minutes again wandering off into ULVER type monotony. As with most of the rest of the songs, the music just sounds completely directionless. Missa Solemnis is slightly more straight forward Black Metal, but still with enough riff and tempo changes to make you dizzy.

And it’s back to lounge music mode for the closer Breathe Out, although this time with some redeeming features, making it the best track on the album. No fun to listen to at all.

Myspace Luxocculta

Lux Occulta – Mother Pandora