Kalpa Taru

I've decided to write this review In honor of Moonlight's recent reformation after eight years of inactivity. Let me tell you though, I was never a fan of the band during their original run, mainly because I hadn't heard of them until late 2013, even then I didn't start listening to them until a year later. I have however, over the past year have grown to be a really big fan of this band. I think the main reason that this Polish band has never been on my radar, is probably because they've never been a big success outside of their home country, and I firmly believe that Moonlight deserves so much more recognition than they have gotten over the course of their career. So, because I love them, I want to tell everyone about them on the off chance that they'll like them too. Anyway, on to the review!

In a time when doom/death influenced beauty and the beast styled gothic metal acts like Tristania, Within Temptation, and Theatre of Tragedy were commonplace and made up the majority of the gothic metal scene, Moonlight never delved into that kind of musical creativity. Instead, Moonlight - and other Polish bands like Artrosis - drew their influence from a plethora of different places, like goth and punk rock, world music, classical, and electronic music. Moonlight, in particular incorporated a lot of Middle Eastern tinges in their brand of gothic metal, which really stood them apart from other acts of the time.

Musically speaking, the songs on Moonlight's 1996 debut, "Kalpa Taru", were arranged and structured in a way that there wasn't anything like it, hell, I still don't think that there's anything like it. There's a lot of unconventionality in this release, the instrumentation can be sporadic at times, and the vocals change from song to song. You can never know what kind of vocal delivery you'll get, Maja's vocals can be soothing, a powerful, scratchy belt, there's also a fair amount of menacing spoken delivery and yelling. And sometimes, the performances on this album can just be eccentric, and it makes for a consistently interesting listen. The rhythms and riffage are the aspects of the music that grounds it in a structure, but even then, they are also contributors to the bizarreness that is this album, a lot of which is a precursor to what the band would release later on in their career. And it all fills the space with sound perfectly, resonating with a little fuzz from the less than perfect production, but it plays in the band's favor. The sound is smokey and mysterious, and really adds to atmosphere they create.

Now, if you haven't noticed, I kind of implied that I've bought this album twice. Which I have. I first got this album on cassette, and as much as I love my tape, I wanted the CD version, with the two songs that weren't on the cassette. So, I created a Canadian Amazon account for the sole purpose of buying the one CD version of this album for sale of the internet. This album is such a great release, and not enough people know about it, so now that I've told you that this exists - I assume by default that you don't know who Moonlight is - go listen to it on YouTube, and get yourself a cassette of it. You won't regret it!

Highlights: Conquistador, Ananke, & Belibaste.

Moonlight has always been considered a gothic band or at least a band that has a lot in common with the gothic imagery/music/scene/etc. This is only partially true as the band has used varied elements in their music, such as progressive rock, nu-rock, trip hop, acoustic rock, Middle-Eastern scales, often to a satisfying effect. This particular album is stylistically schizophrenic, as many debuts are. But it works.

It starts with "Strach", the drumming reminding me of, well, the beginning of the "Suck on This" album by Primus, of all things. An excellent opener utilising some unusual time signatures and... completely non-representative for the album. Then, "Stadium Wiary" has an interesting chorus and is a rather strange little track, due to the spoken part and the main keyboard/guitar riff. "Cisza Przed Burz¹" is an almost all-acoustic song based on an excellent melody, serving as a king of prelude to "Extaza Milczenia", which begins where "Cisza..." leaves off, evolving into a simple but exceptionally effective heavy climax. "Conquistador" is dynamic but rather annoying due to the chorus being repeated way too often. "Modlitwa o Zmiłowanie" is just perfect. Its chorus is one of the best 'catchy in a non-cheesy way' choruses I've heard.

So the stylistic rollercoaster ride continues until the end of the album, each song memorable and containing something distinguishing it from the rest. Some quick examples: "Hexe" - Spanish guitar-based verses, "Zmierzch" - a very optimistic and spiritual acoustic ballad. "Deformis" - pure strangeness, "Zbrodnia i Kara" - pretensious, "Belibaste" - a keyboard-based, totally non-metal, or even rock, song. The melodies the band comes up with are often quite interesting and although they do have a gothic edge to them, they are never obvious or irritating or 'melodramatic', in the bad goth sense.

The sound of this album could be heavier and more spacious. The electric guitars are underproduced and the drums are not powererful enough, lacking the punch. But it's a debut so there's no need to complain, really, as all the instruments are clearly audible and well separated, and the production does not detract from the listening experience.

Apart from the varied songwriting and rollercoaster musical ideas, Moonlight has a singer with a very good voice (Maja Konarska). However, her delivery is sometimes over-the-top, which, together with at times very pretentious lyrics, can be annoying (not a big problem if you don't know Polish). There are some pretty clean/acoustic guitar parts throughout but the electric guiar sticks to basic riffing most of the time. Which is not a drawback, as it fits the music well.

So, this is not gothic. It's more gothic-tinged progressive rock/metal. I'd recommend the album to anyone who likes variety in music. It is one of the best, if not THE best, album in Moonlight's discography, definitely worth checking out.