LUNARIANS

Oh no. There, I no longer walk! More rotten sound. When will Dan Britton decide to come up with a mixing and recording worthy of the name? Will this ignominy definitely be Deluge Grander's hallmark? Damn. There again we have excellent compositions, top-class performers, I even note a pleasant return of the vocals. But this is again a monster waste. My disappointment is immense, especially since we will end up believing that it is a choice. Indeed, even the most unknown groups (therefore with necessarily less resources) offer better.

I'm not asking this artist to do something Steven Wilson-style fluff, but hey: there is room! I am disappointed, disappointed, disappointed ...

"Lunarians" is the fifth full-length studio album by US progressive rock act Deluge Grander. The album was released through the Emkog Records label in December 2020. It's the successor to "Oceanarium" from November 2017. "Lunarians" is the third release in a planned seven album concept idea. Some of the songwriting ideas featured on "Lunarians" were already explored in different arrangements on "Oceanarium".

Other than that "Lunarians" is a different release to "Oceanarium", as the latter is a fully instrumental progressive rock album, while "Lunarians" features vocals, although some parts of the music are still instrumental. "Lunarians" have more in common with Deluge Grander's third full-length studio album "Heliotians" (released in February 2014). The music style and the fact that the music features vocals connect the two albums, although they are certainly also different in some ways. "Lunarians" for example only features male vocals, while "Heliotians" featured both male- and female vocals. In addition to guitars, bass, drums, and vintage keyboards (and of course vocals), the music also features violin, cello, flute, clarinet, oboe, trumpet, and trombone, which brings a nice organic and occasionally almost classical orchestral touch to the material. The overall music style is 70s influenced symphonic progressive rock and artists like early-King Crimson, Genesis, and Camel are all valid references.

Deluge Grander don't quite reach the heights of their influences, but there are still a lot of quality music on "Lunarians", which should please fans of 70s progressive rock. The sound production is pretty well sounding, the musicianship is on a high level on all posts (the vocals could maybe have been a bit more interesting, but they aren't bad). So upon conclusion Deluge Grander bring another good quality progressive rock album to the table. The type of progressive rock album which you can listen to again and again and find new interesting intriguing details and beautiful moments. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.