LUNAR

turbo

CD/LP/cass, Moon Lee

The title of this record, “turbo”, gives away only half of the truth. Admittedly, Lunar are able to churn out some forceful songs that go straight ahead into their intended direction, but there are also a lot of slow and delicate moments laid bare and open on this record. “Belka I Strelka” for instance builds up around a simple line of four notes only that grows from soft and gentle indie-strumming to a hill of music where the wind blows heavy but the view is exciting. The abrupt end of the song is a bit of a letdown though, because imagining where it could have gone from there is a real thrill. So I wonder if Lunar only recorded abbreviated versions of their songs for this record or if they could be coerced into playing 15-minute mountain-dinosaur-versions of them live.

Moreover, the record starts with gentle reverbs and picked notes on a heavily distorted guitar. True, it could go anywhere from there, mostly because this intro reminds me a lot of what Neurosis play before they break into their customary patented full-force noise-tornadoes. Lunar, on the other hand, take the intensity back again even more, introducing a few noisy guitar sounds and then stop the song to get to the next one. Don’t get me wrong, that introductory track “grabador grande” is beautiful, intricate and delicately recorded, full of warm, empty spaces and echoes of nice dreams. But for a record called “turbo” the element of losing control, letting go and burning rubber is definitely missing. I can actually see them counting along while they play. Oh wait, that is the same badmouthing that postrock always used to get: too much math! Well not Lunar, because they are surely not folks to get too theoretical on their music; it has too much organism and body for that.

The singing on “Pizza Song” – the only song with actual vocals on it – reminds me a lot of Muse, to be honest. But that is not a bad thing in itself, not at all. But it makes me wonder if Lunar were looking for a hitsingle to be played on alternative stations. That would be a surprise to any buyer who knows nothing but the single and then gets an album of instrumentals. Well, singles don’t have to be representative in any way, and there is always the possibility of being a trained and attentive consumer and take a listen into what you are buying. Hell, I see a lot of people at the big electro-tv-video-cd-store in my vicinity listening to each and every track of maxi-CDs by chart-acts such as Robbie Williams or Kelis (who has for instance has “Trick Me” and seven remixes on her single, what a drag…), but those might all be suffering from some strange form of compulsive-obsessive mistrust-disorder. Thinking about it, I prefer people not afraid of taking chances when buying records, and actually, everyone who picks up this one by chance, mistake or whatever unintentional reason is rewarded greatly.

Of course, Lunar and their label are in close connections to other bands from their area (counting all of ex-yugoslavia and wider parts of Central Europa as “their area”), such as Gone Bald, Don’t Mess with Texas and Radio Free Isaac. All in all I think that Lunar is not a band a lot of people will go berserk about, creating websites and fanpools, writing them love-letters or having their logo tattoed on their necks, but rather one of the many bands that a lot of people get to know and like and listen to - because that is what they are really best at: being listened to – but a lot more won’t. After all, to spend fifty minutes with a good CD is better than a lot of other things imaginable. Finally, I am thinking that I should re-arrange my introductory sentence to: “Lunar, bringing back the rock into postpunk.”