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LUX OCCULTA

Tech/Extreme Prog Metal • Poland


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Lux Occulta biography
LUX OCCULTA is a progressive/ avant garde black metal act from Krakow, Poland. The group was formed in 1994 and released their debut full-length studio album Forever Alone in 1996 after recording their debut demo The Forgotten Arts in 1995. LUX OCCULTA has so far released 4 full-length studio albums. The latest being "The Mother and the Enemy" from 2001. Currently, the band are working on a new album.

There have been some lineup changes since the founding of the band. The most interesting one happened in 1998 when guitarist Peter G' Ames and bassist Jackie was replaced by DECAPITATED members Vogg (Guitar) and Martin (Bass).

LUX OCCULTA have toured with the likes of OPETH, BEHEMOTH and TIAMAT.

LUX OCCULTA started out playing symphonic black metal but has on later releases incorporated unpredictable time changes and avant garde elements into their sound thus making them interesting for fans of progressive extreme metal.

Bio written by UMUR.

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LUX OCCULTA discography


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LUX OCCULTA top albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

4.00 | 10 ratings
Forever Alone, Immortal
1996
4.11 | 9 ratings
Dionysos
1997
4.41 | 13 ratings
My Guardian Anger
1999
4.50 | 15 ratings
The Mother and the Enemy
2001
4.42 | 10 ratings
Kołysanki
2014

LUX OCCULTA Live Albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

LUX OCCULTA Videos (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS etc)

LUX OCCULTA Boxset & Compilations (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

3.67 | 6 ratings
Maior Arcana: (The Words That Turn Flesh Into Light)
1998

LUX OCCULTA Official Singles, EPs, Fan Club & Promo (CD, EP/LP, MC, Digital Media Download)

4.00 | 2 ratings
The Forgotten Arts
1995

LUX OCCULTA Reviews


Showing last 10 reviews only
 Maior Arcana: (The Words That Turn Flesh Into Light) by LUX OCCULTA album cover Boxset/Compilation, 1998
3.67 | 6 ratings

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Maior Arcana: (The Words That Turn Flesh Into Light)
Lux Occulta Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

Review by CassandraLeo

4 stars Maior Arcana is that odd duck: a reissue of a band's demo with four new tracks. For some reason, "War" and "Love" were swapped in the running order, but the packaging does not reflect this, meaning that the two songs are mislabelled. Since "Love" was reworked with a faster tempo and different arrangement as "Love (Garden of Aphrodite)", this may produce some confusion for listeners.

The material here is pretty strong, considering much of it was a demo. The recording quality is better than one would expect of a black metal demo; highlights include both versions of "Love", "Passing Away", and "The Path (You've Found)". All of this material is likely to be interesting to fans of black metal.

The problem here is that most of this material is now also available on reissues of the band's older albums. The Forgotten Arts was also included on a reissue of Dionysos; "Burn" was included on a reissue of Forever Alone, Immortal; "Heart of the Devil" and "Love (Garden of Aphrodite)" were included (albeit with the titles swapped) on a reissue of My Guardian Anger. If you don't have those reissues, this material is worth tracking down; if you do, "When Horned Souls Awake" probably isn't enough to justify the purchase of the CD on its own.

 My Guardian Anger by LUX OCCULTA album cover Studio Album, 1999
4.41 | 13 ratings

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My Guardian Anger
Lux Occulta Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

Review by CassandraLeo

5 stars A quantum leap forward for the band, My Guardian Anger marks Lux Occulta's transformation from a rather straightforward symphonic black metal band (albeit one which performed somewhat long songs for the genre) to a full-on progressive black metal band. Much of this is due to the addition of Decapitated members Martin and Vogg to the lineup; the technical death metal band's members add a degree of technicality and complexity to the band's compositions that likely exceeds anything the previous lineup of the band would have been capable of playing. Any given song on this album (barring the two short ambient pieces) is likely to contain any number of unexpected twists as the song unfolds; the band stretches out at length and constructs songs from massive numbers of riffs, with copious tempo and time signature changes to boot.

This material is somewhat more melodic than one would typically expect of black metal, but it's nonetheless still black metal, with plenty of blast beats and the requisite harsh vocals one would expect from the genre (though "Nude Sophia" also includes clean female vocals). It's also never anything less than spellbinding. Highlights include "The Opening of Eleventh Sephirah", the aforementioned "Nude Sophia", and "Mane-Tekel-Fares", but all eight songs on the original album are superb and strongly recommended.

The 2001 reissue by Metal Mind includes two bonus tracks which can also be found on the band's Maior Arcana compilation, one of which is a Danzig cover and the other of which is a reworked version of a song from their demo. They are not quite up to the standard of the original eight songs on the album but nonetheless worth hearing. Note that the packaging for the album mislabels both songs, although Prog Archives has the song titles mostly right; "Heart of the Devil" is track nine and "Love (Garden of Aphrodite)" is track ten (Prog Archives omits the subtitle, despite the fact that there is a different version of the track titled only "Love" that appears on the band's demo).

 The Mother and the Enemy by LUX OCCULTA album cover Studio Album, 2001
4.50 | 15 ratings

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The Mother and the Enemy
Lux Occulta Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

Review by CassandraLeo

5 stars This is quite literally the most unpredictable album I've heard in extreme metal, to the point where some of it doesn't even qualify as metal at all - three tracks are far more likely to be classified as trip-hop than as any form of metal I've even heard, and even on the "metallic" numbers you'll find digressions into techno, jazz, or spoken word.

A lot of people only know Lux Occulta (Latin for "hidden light") as "that side project of Martin and Vogg from Decapitated." This is a shame, because while Decapitated are unquestionably one of the best straight-up death metal acts recording today, Lux Occulta record music of a complexity and intensity that puts even that band's repertoire to shame. My Guardian Anger was a simmering, unholy slab of progressive black metal the likes of which has seldom been heard before and is unlikely to be heard again for quite some time, and this album takes its blueprint and expands on it in every direction imagineable.

Lux Occulta have always been one of the more experimental black metal acts out there, but this album comes as a complete shock upon first listen. It doesn't get much easier on subsequent listens, either; this is difficult subject matter the band are treating here. The mother of the title is Mother Nature, and the enemy is the human race. Several tracks explicitly detail the disintegration of the planet, featuring horrors Biblical in scope of humanity's own making. The music is suitably dark to match, even for Lux Occulta; while My Guardian Anger and previous efforts contained considerable amounts of melodicism for a band this heavy, this album eschews melody almost entirely. The music is more complex than before, as well; Lux Occulta have firmly planted themselves in the math-metal camp of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah et al. with this release, to the point where it becomes clear why they've had such difficulty finding a replacement drummer (percussionist Kriss departed after this record): there are very few people who could play this music.

If anything is in danger of sinking the record, it's the diversity of the tracks here, but after repeated listens the song order begins to make a bit more sense. Unquestionably the highlight of the album, and possibly of the band's entire career, is "Missa Solemnis," which is as good of a career summary as I can imagine for the band's trajectory thus far; other choice cuts include "Mother Pandora," "Architecture," and the three trip-hop numbers (namely, "Yet Another Armageddon," "Midnight Crisis," and "Breathe Out"), which are excellent. I would recommend starting with My Guardian Anger, which might be a stronger record, but this album should not be overlooked. Just don't expect to comprehend it after one listen, or even ten.

(Review originally written for Last.FM and later posted at Metal Archives)

 Kołysanki by LUX OCCULTA album cover Studio Album, 2014
4.42 | 10 ratings

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Kołysanki
Lux Occulta Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

Review by CassandraLeo

5 stars When a band reappears after over a decade of silence, any of a number of things can happen. The band can carry on as if no time had passed whatsoever, releasing music that is clearly of a piece with their earlier work, as Änglagård did. They can experiment with their sound, making music that is a progression from their earlier work but still clearly the work of the same band, as My Bloody Valentine and Gorguts did. Or they can just throw all the rules out the window entirely and release material that doesn't even sound like the work of the same band.

Poland's erstwhile black metal band Lux Occulta opted for the latter option. While there are a few metallic moments on this album, they are few and far between, and they have far more to do with industrial metal than they do with black metal (what's more, the trademark harsh vocals of the genre are almost nowhere to be found). The non-metal parts of the band's previous record, The Mother and the Enemy, offer vague clues to some of the places the band have taken their sound (avant-garde jazz, electronica), but more of the record is new ground entirely. Not just for the band, but for music itself. The list of genres on Wikipedia gives you a vague idea what you're in for ("electronic rock, free jazz, avant-garde rock/metal, spoken word"), as does the list of instruments (which includes accordion, violin, trumpet, double bass, and cajón), but even that won't prepare you for how utterly weird this album is. Where else can you hear accordions and violins duel with industrial guitar riffs and samples of Polish folk music? The diversity of this album bears mention as well. While the album maintains a consistent atmosphere throughout, not one song sounds like any other, and in fact even within the same song you will frequently hear a wide range of stylistic ground covered.

There is nothing else like this album in existence, and it is a mind trip like little else you will hear this year or any other. Strongly recommended.

Thanks to UMUR for the artist addition.

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