Phantom

I've got to admit that even though I've reviewed several of Lustre's recordings and found them very monotonous and repetitive, I still harbour the hope that one day he'll surprise me and produce something worthy of his ability and the work he has put in over the years on this solo project. I know some people prefer his music not to change much from one release to the next but surely after four albums and several other recordings, he's entitled to a little unpredictability ...

"Phantom" starts off quietly yet hopefully with darkling solo guitar and snake-like roars in the background. For a moment I wonder whether all my prayers have been answered all at once, perhaps too much so, and Lustre has morphed into an entirely different atmospheric BM / dark ambient sort of being. Then the familiar synthesisers swing into the music and we are back in familiar doodle / plod territory. A backdrop of droning BM guitar noise roar and the occasional lead guitar riff vie for attention with the looping synth rhythms. The music reaches a plateau early on and stays there.

So much for Part 1 of this recording ... Part 2 starts off very strongly with a doomy droning deep guitar riff loop, so long the repetition is barely noticeable, while lead guitar plays over it. This time the guitar and the po-faced keyboard tones trade loops over and over, so at least there's some variation there. The reptile voices snarl from time to time just to let us know they haven't gone away but instead are looking for a gap in the music to come into their own. Unfortunately for them but maybe fortunately for us the rigidly repetitive nature of the loops permits no easy entry and the monsters eventually slink away.

I guess I have to wait for the next Lustre recording to find out if even he has got sick of all the repetition and bland monotony of his instruments and is striking out on a new musical path. Until then, I really can't listen to any more of this EP - it is machine monotony and blandness to the nth degree.

Lustre is a band that I have a lot of history with. While they aren’t the oldest band around, first releasing music in 2008, their discography is large enough to think of them as not being new. With 5 full albums and numerous EPs, splits, and demos, you can lose yourself in Lustre for a time. And of course, with familiarity there comes a more critical eye. Comparisons to previous work can be made more readily, and the “overall direction” of a band can be judged.

With Lustre’s more recent albums, you could start getting the sense that Nachtzeit, the single member of Lustre, has started to mellow out, and is using Lustre as a more ambient project. Both Wonder and Blossom have been very soft, very pretty music. Which is wonderful, of course. Lustre has always been able to instill a sense of melancholic beauty into their music. However, to my ear, it sounded like the more atmospheric, dark beauty of their earlier albums had disappeared. No more Welcome Winter or Night Spirit. Luckily, I was proven wrong as soon as I started listening to Phantom.

Phantom follows the familiar pattern of two songs, paired together to draw on the same themes and feelings. Part I is a slow dirge of synths and steady drums, punctuated by the occasional thick guitar riff, bringing the song even lower into the darkness. It evokes the night like only Lustre can, and there is nothing uplifting about this song. Part II begins with a guitar riff that is so familiar it almost makes you think Nachtzeit is plagiarizing himself. The dark beauty of the deep synths pulling down a seemingly uplifting guitar section is what Lustre has always been about; not just juxtaposition of song sections, but juxtaposition of instruments in the same section. By the time the higher synth notes finally make their appearance in this song, the listener has already been lulled into the darkness of night. But instead of pressing home that darkness, Lustre inserts sparkling synth notes, like starlight revealing the path out of the darkness.

One of the most amazing things about Lustre is its ability to zero in on a series of synth and guitar notes that can be repeated endlessly and continue to be engaging for the full length of the song. Lustre is music you are meant to get lost in. The repetitive notes, the length of the songs, the wordless exhalations of vocals, it is all meant to put a spell on the listener, to root them to their seat and draw them in. And Phantom does this exceptionally well. It is probably the best Lustre output I have heard in many years, and I am very happy with it.

Originally written for fetiddead.wordpress.com.

Lustre are fairly close to being a love/hate kind of band. While the project's fans praise the marriage of Burzum-gone-pure-minimalism to hypnotic, synth-heavy ambient, others lament the heavy reliance on repetition, the lack of a riff-centric approach to songcraft and the band's general allergy to dynamics or willingness to reach beyond the borders of the niche it has carved out for itself. Personally, I find myself in a perhaps smaller third camp. I love Lustre's early material passionately - I think on those first four releases Nachtzeit managed to conjure an atmosphere that few others have been able to rival. Subsequent releases, though, have seemed to lose the trail a bit, but not out of some obvious desire to evolve or refine Lustre's music. No, it seemed that perhaps that early material was just something of a happy accident, perhaps, with everything falling into place just so, the beauty of the melodies hammered home by insistent repetition that worked wonderfully but which perhaps Nachtzeit later set aside as immature or lazy songwriting. As a fan of that early stuff, I couldn't help but be disappointed with the direction the project was heading, and fabricated all manner of possibilities and explanations, the whole time my fingers crossed in hopes that some day the band would return to glory.

Well, with a big fat grin on my face I can tell you that those days are finally upon us. Part I of this two-song, nearly 30 minute EP begins with something unusual for Lustre: very clear, articulate guitar playing. Typically guitars are used more as a textural element than anything else in Lustre tracks, often just playing droning, distorted sheets of chords that amble by in waves while the melodic heavy-lifting is handled by the synths. It was a bit of a shock to hear the track open with guitars played so vigorously, so close to the ear, but it did sound nice so I held on and hoped for the best. Well, rest assured that this is more of a return to form than it is a major departure for the band, because after the Nachtzeit's signature reptilian, exasperated rasps start crawling out of your speakers it's evident that it's only a matter of minutes before things start drifting back to familiar territory.

And shift they do. Soon enough the big walls of fuzzy guitar come gently booming into the mix, nebulous gas clouds of synthesizer hovering just over everything just the way you remember. As always, the drums are extremely minimal, doing nothing more than keeping simple beats to measure out time, set way off in the back behind layer after layer of textural tapestry. In another subtle but interesting change of flavors, the main melodies here are handled by a synth horn rather than the keyboards, pads and synth bells that have been used on past material. The horn brings a slightly more organic tinge to the soundscape, lending a bit more of an earthy vibe to the track that contrasts slightly with the typically floaty, spacey atmosphere that Lustre aims for. It's not a huge departure, and the length of the song and general structure of it are such a welcome return to form that I can't help but embrace the horn synth. It gives me slight Summoning vibes and, when the guitars lurch back into the mix about ten minutes in, I can't help but sit back and just grin from ear to ear.

Part 2 continues to fulfill the promise of the first half. The song unfolds in classic Lustre fashion, slowly adding layer after layer to set the mood, then peels things back to reveal the skeleton of the track for a few moments, before the mix comes rolling back in around nine minutes in. This track sees the return of a synth glockenspiel type instrument as the melodic lead, which successfully recaptures the magic of old Lustre songs that so skillfully combined the minimalist black metal elements of Burzum's two last pre-prison albums with his dark ambient masterpiece "Tomhet," along with the retro sci-fi synth soundtrack vibes that sort of recall the soundtrack to the first Mass Effect game, which were always highlights of early Lustre material for me. A gorgeous track.

I can't honestly convince myself that this is the best stuff Lustre has ever done, but it is without a doubt the best thing bearing the Lustre name that has come out since the Welcome Winter EP. It's really enheartening to see the band in such fine form again. Though I suspect Nachtzeit still has too much desire to do different styles on different releases (there's a somewhat different sound on the follow-up, Blossom) the successful return to the classic Lustre sound on Phantom has convinced me that it's still worth my time to keep up with the project. Who knows, he might even top the masterful Night Spirit one day.