THE LAMPLIGHTER

I just realized this band couple of months ago when a friend of mine recommended me to have listen to it. AT first I was not quite impressed with it as I found the mismatch which was quite obvious between the music and the vocal part at the beginning part of the album. This might be caused by my expectation the band would play something heavy as its name is quite similar with the opening track of Black Sabbath "Tyr" album called as Anno Mundi. I think the name has different meaning with the Black Sabbath one. Once I removed the image of heavy music then I started to appreciate the music even though still found the vocal is not quite powerful - not something prog, I think ...

The music of this album isa basically pure soft neo-prog music with long sustain keyboard solo and some guitar work in Floydian style. Obviously this is a concept album with major three movements and I started to enjoy the music as the second track The call and farewell song (6.20) unfolds. It's basically a typical soft or dragging neoprog with relatively slow tempo music. This is not something that I can enjoy day by day as I feel not having patience with its really slow movement of the music. I am not saying it's bad but I have to wait quite a long time to get the right passages. As I enjoy the music its entirety, I find the 7th track titles as Endless Star (10;38) is quite interesting. It's not because of the longest in term of duration, but I really enjoy how the music moves in ambient mode with long sustain keyboard work and stunning Floydian guitar work.

Overall, it's a good album from Cuba prog band Anima Mundi. The music is in the vein of something like Red Sand etc. Keep on proggin' ...!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW