For some reason, we have always thought that reviewing a personal album, like this one, would never do it justice. We overcame these hesitations, and this had everything to do with the album’s particular atmosphere created by the music.
We have been trying to think of another album we have come across that had so much light amidst so much darkness…nothing comes to mind and, with every new listening session, we are getting more and more reassured about this. But let’s take things from the beginning.
‘Bloody Saturnalia‘ comes after the release of a haunting soundtrack to celebrate 100 years from the release of the movie ‘Hӓxan’. It is an album inspired by and dedicated to Nick Carlisle’s father, who sadly passed away on New Year’s Eve 2023. The title of this album and the subjects of its lyrics also relate to the book ‘Defying Hitler: A Memoir by Sebastian Haffner’ whose theme, the rise of Nazism in Germany, is a timely one as we see the rise of populism around the world today. Kenneth Clarke’s documentary series ‘Civilisation’ also fed into the themes of various songs on this album (e.g. ‘Another Level Down‘, ‘Life in A Major Key‘, ‘Bloody Saturnalia‘).
We listened to 70 independent/underground releases during October 2023, and we were stunned by the debut singles/EP/albums during this month. 26 of these 70 releases form this monthly playlist and let us admit that there have been a few disappointing releases that did not make it despite our biased convictions that they would.
Lux are named after a safe house hotel in Moscow to which communists were exiled, though it failed in its mission as a lot of them ended up being killed during Stalin’s purges. The band, however, has been steadily making its mark since 2017, ever since their surreal song (full with political allegory), ‘