THE LAMPLIGHTER

Anima Mundi is a band that comes from Cuba. This fact alone would be enough to make you curious, and honestly, you should. Anima Mundi is a good band that's been around for over a decade and their new album The Lamplighter (2013) is their 4th. I was indeed curious about the band, I kind of missed their 'boat' along the way. I've listened to their debut album Septentrión (2002) but completely missed their next two albums: Jagannath Orbit (2008) and The Way (2010).

Now Anima Mundi has a new vocalist Emmanuel Pirko-Farrath and this is a fact that could make them even better. But to begin with I'll tell you that Eammanuel's vocals are... not there. His voice is far away from being a bad one, but the problem for me lies in his accent. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a snobbish kind of guy that looks for the 'perfect english'. Being from a country that doesn't have English as its main language (Brazil) I struggle myself to not have a heavy accent. The problem isn't that, very often bands comes from different places with singers with a bit of accent and that's fine. In Anima Mundi's case is very hard to bear the accent and because of that the melody lines.

Now, when it comes to the music, The Lamplighter (2013) has everything correct. Symphonic Prog played with very good keyboards (the best feature on the album), good Gilmourish guitars, good bass lines and ok drumming. And as I was listening to the album I notice that is exactly that the biggest problem with The Lamplighter (2013), everything is 'correct' and 'good' but there's nothing on the album (with a few keyboard moments) that make me say 'oh yeah, now we're talking' or even get really excited about.

The 'Suite The Lamplighter' is nice and I particularly like the last song 'His Majesty Love'. Overall the feeling of 'ok, when they're going for more' stayed with me the whole time. Maybe it's not their kind of music, but I was always waiting for some challenge, for some more. And it never came. Maybe it's not MY kind of music, anyway, a good album, but not essential.