|
 |
ALBUM REVIEW
- LVCVS - Semen Roris
- Ars Aeterna
-
- Italy’s LVCVS certainly
aren’t your average neo-folk act, so it’s a good thing that we don’t deal
in averages here. "Semen Roris" is something unique, challenging and
altogether otherworldly. It’s the collective’s second release, a dreamy, moody
composition summoned to life via the medium of various traditional stringed instruments
(bowed psaltry, saz, vielle, lute, harp), tambours, voices and vivid imagination.
-
- I’m usually deterred by the term
"medieval" when used to describe modern song-writing, but in LVCVS I’ve
found an act where the label really sticks; they are immersed in a medieval artistic
mindset. Their attempt to conjure the Middle East as the medieval mind might have
perceived it is both earnest and interesting, resulting in an ambient folk sound with a
power to ensnare and transport. Opener "Nocte" encapsulates the mood,
with plucked strings and a pretty recorder melody providing an enchantingly gentle intro,
before a deep, clean male vocal is answered, line-by-line, with crystal-clear female
tones.
-
- "Alba Mora" features
sharp and piercing strings that cause the breath to catch a little (repeated later on "Lux
Per Hedera"), whilst "Lux" stands out with its beautiful,
cascading, plucked melodies. Although decidedly fairy-tale in aura, "Semen
Roris" is composed large from rather melancholy movements, with lots of meanders
down dark, minor-key streams. "Vanae Imagines", with its rich, parallel
vocals, is more hopeful and hymnal, but overall it’s almost as if these songs already
express some sadness about their subject matter – either because the East is
ultimately destined to remain unconquered, or because the bard already realises his
visions cannot match reality.
-
- Poignancy, parallelism and play
– and LVCVS rightly seek to match the "compositional games" of medieval
music and art – are the subtle forces around which this album unfolds. The tracks are
like illuminations in a manuscript – each re-uses elements from the previous panel,
while at the same time adding a bright splash of colour to catch the imagination. Very
medieval, very gentle, and extremely beautiful indeed
- 79/100
- Ellen Simpson
-
- www.lvcvs.com
|
|
|
|