PART III: THE LILAC MOON (AS THE DESERTS OF TRÄUN)

"Part III: The Lilac Moon" is the debut full-length studio album by avant-garde rock/metal act The Deserts of Träun. The album was released through Bruhtal Shocks Music in 2003. The Deserts of Träun consists of former Estradasphere drummer David Murray, who plays most instruments and sings most vocals on the album, although Murray has enlisted several guest musicians to provide various additional instrumental and vocal parts. "Part III: The Lilac Moon" was up until 2017 the sole release by The Deserts of Träun, but Murray returned in that year with no less than 4 EPs of material, renaming the project Traun.

"Part III: The Lilac Moon" features 24 relatively short tracks ranging from about 1 to 4 minutes in length. Stylistically the music on the album is very eclectic featuring elements from everything between jazz, fusion, classical music, black metal, death metal, electronic music, and rock. The album is a sci-fi concept album where the titles of the tracks often reveal the flow of the story. The music has an almost cinematic soundtrack quality to it, but the short song lengths and variation between tracks ensure that the listener is kept on his/her toes at all times. This is not easy listening background music.

On a funny sidenote I noticed a conceptual continuity detail. I´ve been listening a lot to another one of David Murray´s projects this last year (Tholus) and I noticed a The first couple of minutes of "Battle Upon The Space Galleon" (from "Part III: The Lilac Moon") are also used on the Tholus track "Short Forevers" from the technical/progressive sci-fi themed death metal album "Constant (2007)". An album written by guitarist Mike Johnson who is also credited for additional composing on "Part III: The Lilac Moon". Most of the music on the album is composed by David Murray though and given the wide range of styles he is quite a talented and adventurous composer.

The album is almost an hour long, but there´s not a dull moment insight and the music is interesting throughout the album´s playing time. It´s all packed in a relatively well sounding production job (slightly below what I expect from a professional sound production, but still decent), and "Part III: The Lilac Moon" is a quality release in all departments and definitely recommended to those with an open mind and a taste for eclectic avant-garde/progressive rock metal. A 3 star (60%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)