THE DESERTS OF TRAUN

Part III: The Lilac Moon is the debut album by avant garde rock/ metal act The Deserts of Traun ( the genre catagorization is to be taken with a grain of salt as the music on this album almost defies catagorization). It´s a project by former Estradasphere drummer David Murray. Most instruments and vocals are done by David Murray, but there are several guest musicians providing musical details on the album.

There are 24 short tracks on the album ranging from about 1 - 4 minutes in length. The musical styles go from everything between jazz, fusion, classical, black metal, death metal, electronic music and rock. An extremely eclectic album. The album is a sci-fi concept album where the titles of the songs give hints to the scenery. I´ve been listening a lot to another one of David Murray´s projects this last year ( Tholus) and I noticed a funny conceptual continuity detail. The first couple of minutes of Battle Upon The Space Galleon ( from Part III: The Lilac Moon) are also used in 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 is composed by David Murray though and given the wide range of styles he is quite a talented guy.

While the music is interesting throughout the album albeit only for the really open minded listener, the production does drag my rating down a bit. It´s a bit homemade if I may use such an expression and it sounds a bit too much like a hobby project for comfort IMO. I´m sure a better sound quality would have meant that I enjoyed the album even more so it´s a bit of a shame really. I´ll give a 3 star rating and warn those who like one type/ style of music on one album, and recommend the album to those who like experiments with many genres within an album. In my world this is truly progressive music ( for better or worse).

Eclectic Movie Sound Track

Dave Murray (Ex- Estradsphere) was one of the driving creative forces of Estradasphere, and after his leaving the band, he decided to create a band after his own liking. Now, this is decidely not Estradasphere, despite it being of a similar formula, combing seemingly unrelated genres effectively into an odd tapestry of musical genres. However, The Deserts of Traun is a different entity altogether, with a completely different feel.

Instead of granoise compositions and longer tracks, TDoT uses much smaller and concise tracks, even drawing some comparisons to Fantomas, instead of Estradasphere. The songs feel, as they should, and are named as, like the sound track to an adventure movie, full of suspense and exotic locations, which the music pulls off wonderfully. The music has just about everything, from creepy ambient death metal, to ethnic folk music, to classical, to jazz and so on and so forth.

A very fun and interesting album, but one that should be listened to along with the visual aid.

4 Stars