LUCID DREAM
“The Great Dance Of The Spirit”
Album Review by Iron Mathew

8.5/10

Lucid Dream are a progressive hard rock band from Italy formed by guitarist Simone Terigi in 2009, releasing their debut album ‘Visions From Cosmos 11’ in 2011. ‘The Great Dance Of The Spirit’, released in 2020, is the bands fourth album, and is the finale to the trilogy of albums, which began in 2013 with ‘The Eleventh Illusion’, and continued with ‘Otherworldly’, released in 2016.

Featuring an alternative progressive rock sound, Lucid Dream mix hard rock with soft rock, classic rock with melodic rock, and throw in a little AOR just for good measure. ‘The Great Dance Of The Spirit’ is just shy of one hour in length, and contains twelve songs – half of them clocking in at over six minutes, with the longest at over seven! Vocal duties are shared between Roberto Tiranti from Labyrinth (five songs), and Carlo Faraci from Arca Hadian (all other songs).

The album opens in classic hard rock fashion with the up tempo and energetic ‘Wall Of Fire’. At six minutes plus, it’s a bold move to open an album with such a long song, but the infectious nature of ‘Wall Of Fire’ is spot on, your interest not waning for one second. With more energy and oomph, ‘Desert Glass’ is harder rocking than ‘Wall Of Fire’, packing a weighty punch as it romps on by. And the sing a long style chorus adds to the songs attract-ability. ‘By My Side’ is another six minutes plus offering, taking the album across the rock border into ballad territory. Heavily laden with keyboards, ‘By My Side’ is lazy like a Sunday morning, an amble on a deserted beach, and a cosy evening in, sipping wine in front of a roaring fire.

And the six minute long songs just keep coming – you certainly get plenty of music for your moolah here! But songs five and six have two totally different approaches to rock. First up, song five, ‘A Dress Of Light’ is the most mellow offering on the album so far, but also breathes an air of darkness and brooding. Some of the guitar riffage is fairly aggressive, and kinda chop chop chops furiously. Song six, ‘The War Of The Cosmos’ is highly energetic and extremely infectious, and offers a most incredible (probably written for) crowd participation chorus. The chant style “whoa-oh, whoa-oh” included in the chorus break is gonna be lapped up by an audience in a live arena.

And at over seven minutes, ‘The Realm Of Beyond’ is the longest song on the album – and is an instrumental. Opening with some sublime guitar work, ‘The Realm Of Beyond’ is an epic and atmospheric journey through many sides of the rock genre. The acoustic guitar led ‘Golden Silence’ stretches its way across six lazy and mellow minutes. Another lazy like Sunday morning offering, ‘Golden Silence’ is as pleasant as an afternoon ramble through the countryside on a warm summers day.

At just a third of the length of the original, there is an acoustic reprisal of album opener ‘Wall Of Fire’, generating images of the bands guitarist Terigi, alone on stage, sat on a stool with a lone spotlight focused on him. Now if ever there was a song that does exactly what it says, then ‘Prayer For The Great Spirit’ is it – a spoken word prayer, no music, just a prayer – amen. Atmospheric and tension filled, ‘Invisible Stranger’ sends a little chill down the spine as it casually strolls on, seamlessly leading into the final song ‘Wakan Tanka’ – a mellow and acoustic wander, with a repeated chant of “wakan tanka” from start to finish.

Overall, an exquisite journey of atmosphere and moods, Lucid Dream deliver an hour of epic and tension filled rock songs.

TRACKLIST

Wall Of Fire
Desert Glass
By My Side
Moving Sands
A Dress Of Light
The War Of The Cosmos
The Realm Of Beyond
Golden Silence
Wall Of Fire (acoustic reprise)
Prayer For The Great Spirit
Invisible Stranger
Waken Tanka

https://www.luciddream.it/

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