Luna - Ashes To Ashes (CD)

Review
Doom-metal.com
7.5/10
06.11.2014

The seemingly endless supply of new Extreme Doom bands and projects from Eastern Europe never ceases to amaze. One of the more promising newcomers is Luna, the one-man project of DeMort (whom some may know from the Ukrainian Death Doom outfit Amily). The debut album Ashes to Ashes, consisting of only one long track, is out on – who guessed it? – Solitude Productions. Do not let the seemingly uninspired title fool you: while DeMort certainly does not reinvent the wheel here, his work is worth more than just a passing listen, in a sense reducing Doom to its essentials and thus justifying the use of a very traditional title. After all, the religious phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” does epitomise the notions of mortality, transience and mourning which are central to Doom aesthetics.

The music on Luna’s first output is an atmospheric mixture of Death Doom and Funeral Doom. Its minimalism and extensive use of repetitions place it somewhat closer to the latter, but some of the riffs (especially early in the track) are too dynamic and fast to qualify as ‘proper’ Funeral Doom, especially in combination with the occasional doublebass drumming. Synthesizers are omnipresent, but put to very tasteful use throughout the album. They play a more prominent role than the lead guitars, which only appear every now and then and usually play in unison with the keyboards. Other than that, the guitar work consists of basic power chords almost exclusively, sometimes with palm-muted rhythmic variations, but mostly as straight as you would expect them to be from puristic Funeral Doom acts. In the slower sections, the simplistic synthesised strings and guitar chords sound a lot like Reclusiam or The Howling Void while in other places, a dark piano line reminiscent of Ea forms the binding thread throughout many minutes of variations on the same riff and chord progression. This way, the music flows very naturally and seems deceptively simple while, in fact, it is constantly developing on an intricate level. The arrangements, thus, are very well thought out.

So far, the above descriptions have not hinted at anything particularly unusual or original about this album, and it is true, this sort of style has been heard many times before, both from Eastern European bands and their earlier Finnish paragons (Shape of Despair or Colosseum come to mind), although – as is the case with many other Ukrainian or Russian bands – the atmosphere is less melancholic in direct comparison. However, there are two things which make Ashes to Ashes interesting despite its derivative approach. Firstly, it impresses with its sheer quality. The atmosphere works exceptionally well throughout and, as mentioned at the outset, captures the essence of Doom. Of course, the material also benefits greatly from the professional production that we have come to expect from Solitude, even though the highly polished sound will probably fail to please lovers of the rawer type of Funeral Doom. Secondly and more importantly, though, there are no vocals on the entire album (apart from a short distorted sample around the 34-minute mark)! Instrumental Doom is a rarity even today, and some listeners will have a hard time getting used to it, but at the end of the day, it works. I would even go so far as to say that I do not miss anything. To me, this album serves well to illustrate the extreme limitations of the formulaic growling employed by most bands: in many cases, it fails to convey more than just a very slim emotional palette, and eventually fails to add much substance to the music. Whether the absence of vocals for Luna was a conscious choice or the result of limitations, I cannot say, but it ultimately helps saving the release from being forgettable.

Still, there is little variation considering the album length, especially since the style does not allow for any particularly interesting focal points that stand out and capture the listener’s attention. Towards the last third, the thoughts tend to stray and the atmosphere starts to grow a bit stale, making you long for new nuances. Since Ashes to Ashes is a debut, though, this can not only be forgiven, but even be seen as a good thing: there is still room for improvement, and the great potential we can hear on this album makes me wonder what future Luna releases may have in store for us. In all, this project deserves the attention of any lover of the above-mentioned bands – just do not expect to be overwhelmed by an abundance of fresh ideas.

Author: Dominik Sonders

Review
DarkUndergroundMusicZine
8/10
13.06.2014

Luna are a 1 man band from Ukraine that plays a very atmospheric and symphonic form of funeral doom/death metal and this is a review of his 2014 album "Ashes to Ashes" which was released by Solitude Productions.

Dark sounding symphonic synths start off the album and they also use a variety of many different sounding keys and after a couple of minutes the music starts going for a more heavier and atmospheric direction as well adding in the doom metal sounds and there is also a great amount of melody being used throughout this 55 minute long song.

As the song progresses it starts going for a more melodic funeral doom metal sound and it sticks to a slow musical direction from beginning to end as well as having a symphonic sounding background and after 34 minutes of being all instrumental tribal elements, demonic growling vocals and drones become a part of the song briefly while the music remains true to a funeral doom/dearth metal direction and then the music also goes back to being all instrumental and during the last 5 minutes of the song melodic guitar leads are added into the music.

Luna creates a very long and dark 55 minute epic song with this album bringing a more symphonic, melodic and atmospheric take on funeral doom/death metal while still having the heaviness this genre is known for and he sticks to mostly an instrumental direction with only a few seconds of growls and the production sounds very dark, powerful and heavy sounding.

In my opinion Luna are a very great sounding atmospheric and symphonic funeral doom/death metal project and if you are a fan of this musical genre, you should check out this album.

Author: OccultBlackMetal

Review
Iye Zine
6.8/10
13.06.2014

Parlare di questo disco presenta diversi trabocchetti, non ultimo quello di rischiare di contraddirsi più volte nel corso della stessa recensione.

Il problema è che questo Ashes to Ashes, album d’esordio della one-man band ucraina Luna, in pratica fonde senza mezzi termini gli ultimi lavori di Ea e Monolithe, attingendo a piene mani dalla formula che ha reso peculiari queste due grandi realtà del funeral-death doom, a partire dalla presenza nella tracklist di una sola, lunghissima, traccia.
Le affinità non finiscono certamente qui, infatti lo stile compositivo esibito da DeMort, il musicista che sta dietro quest’operazione, non si discosta di un millimetro da quello espresso dalle due band citate, grazie alla sovrabbondanza di atmosfere evocative guidate per lo più da un solenne lavoro di tastiera, sovente dal tocco orchestrale, oppure da un uso minimale del pianoforte che va a tracciare linee melodiche semplici ma coinvolgenti, appoggiate su uno schema basato su un’alternanza quasi matematica tra riff e interventi delle batteria.
Insomma, messa così ce ne sarebbe abbastanza per scagliare indignati le cuffie urlando al plagio (o giù di lì), se non fosse che Ashes to Ashes, nonostante la lunghezza e un’innegabile ripetitività di fondo, si rivela un ascolto assolutamente gradevole, in particolare per chi ama sia i misteriosi russi privi di un nome ed un volto, sia i più riconoscibili ma altrettanto schivi transalpini.
L’unica differenza, non da poco ai fini delle sua resa finale, è la matrice strumentale dell’album, il che ne rende inevitabilmente più faticoso l’ascolto, oltre a farlo sembrare, di fatto, un sorta di disco ambient sul quale siano stati innestati abilmente pesanti riff di chitarra e le percussioni.
Per il resto nulla da dire sull’abilità di DeMort nel costruire quasi un’ora di musica credibile, riuscendo nel contempo a tenersi sufficientemente alla larga da quella stucchevolezza che, in simili circostanze, rischia di prendere in ogni attimo il sopravvento; positivo anche il fatto che, tutto sommato, Ashes To Ashes prenda quota nel suo quarto d’ora finale, quando però gli Ea diventano decisamente qualcosa in più di una semplice influenza.
Insomma, prendendo questo lavoro così com’è, fingendo d’aver perso temporaneamente la memoria, potremmo godercelo senza alcuna remora; purtroppo non è così e, pur non essendo un maniaco dell’originalità a tutti i costi, non posso fare a meno di proporre un paragone alpinistico: c’è colui che apre una nuova via e c’è invece quello che, successivamente, la utilizza faticando indubbiamente molto meno; poi si potrà dire che entrambi sono arrivati comunque in vetta, ma nessuno dovrà mai dimenticare che ciò è avvenuto con tempi e modalità ben differenti.

Author: Stefano Cavanna

Review
Metal Temple
8/10
05.09.2014

Invoking the emotions of the darkest corners of the human mind, LUNA's one-song album engrosses the listener's auditory receptors and maintains a heavy, haunting sound.

When you piece together the fact that this band is from Ukraine, it's easy to tie the heavy, depressive tones to the difficult nature of life there. A profound sense of struggle and sadness is present throughout the song, all fifty-seven minutes of it. The majority of it is slow rhythm and percussion, yet the faster tempo and transcendent double bass segments fit in well, providing an awesome sense of “epicness”. There are dark overtones combined with moments of uplifting and progressive undertones, and the combination of the two provide a balance a monster of a song such as this would need.

Perhaps a favorite feature throughout the evolution of the song is the liberal use of piano and symphonic instruments. In terms of Doom Metal, this piece is well orchestrated and each instrument track blends flawlessly with the others. Everything is crisp and clear in quality and isn't hard to figure out the production is top-notch.

To some fans, this will be less of a musical experience and more of a spiritual or emotional one. However the melancholy connotations are heard, it is easy to listen to and thus worth the time spent under the haunting spell of "Ashes to Ashes".

Author: Matt Johnson