Album Review: Lucid Void, Lucid Void
Posted in Reviews on July 7th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
There’s something unassuming about the way Lucid Void jazz into “Himmelheber,” the seven-minute opening track on their self-titled debut full-length, released through Sound of Liberation Records. But the first two minutes of that song, before it moves to the more grounded but still intricate series of jabs and bass flourishes, building like classic heavy prog jams, are emblematic of the subtleties on display throughout the record. Based in Darmstadt, Germany, and produced by René Hofmann (also of Wight) with mixing by Josko Joketovic Jole Joka (Willi Dammeier at Institut für Wohlklangforschung mastered), Lucid Void offer six tracks of krautrock-informed sans-vox heavy prog and psych.
Beginning with “Himmelheber” as both leadoff and the longest individual piece (immediate points), they go on to inhabit a range of vibes across the three-per-side-makes-six songs and 36 minutes, with “Gala Ballada,” following and opening wider to psychedelic-ish fluidity, mellow space rock throwing itself a twist in the last of its own seven minutes (opening with the two longest tracks is double points; please note there are no actual points) in giving due accent to its patient but not still movement. Like the quiet section of a latter-day Elder song isolated and extracted to stand on its own, it sweeps into its more shimmering conclusion of thoughtful lead guitar and keys, resides there for a while and then fades out, not looking to wear out its welcome but, especially in combination with “Himmelheber” just before, engaging and maybe a little hypnotic but still clear in its purposes toward exploring classy/classic progressive rock.
The listener might not always know where the four-piece of Jakob Schuck (guitar), Samba Gueye (keyboards), Béla Nitsch (bass) and Max Hübner (drums/percussion) are going, but if Causa Sui had already known they wanted to be psych-jazz when they started out, their first record might’ve sounded like Lucid Void‘s self-titled, and as they move through the willfully bumpy early rhythm and warm heavy-psych-toned procession of “Dorian,” definitely plotted in its structure but still feeling open on its journey into the proto-New Wave keyboard and molten bass and the concluding acoustic reveal in its second half, the grace in the band’s sound isn’t to be ignored.
One can hear hints of Colour Haze, the aforementioned Causa Sui and Elder, maybe some loose influence from fellow European instrumentalists like My Sleeping Karma on “Dorian,” but while Lucid Void are obviously schooled in the works of generational forebears, they come across as wanting to take on an array of different sounds and sub-styles within the proggier end of heavy music, and that ambition is realized across Lucid Void in the varied but cohesive stretches of the songs that comprise it.
“Dorian” is shorter than either of its two side A companions, and no less thoughtful in wrapping the first half of the album than “Himmelheber” was in starting, the pastoral shimmer of its relatively quick guitar intro soon joined by toms seeming to preface some of the serenity of the is-that-running-water-I-hear ending. To be symmetrical and liquid in kind is not easy in any style, let alone on a first record, but a deceptively gentle delivery even at in the neo-space rock shuffle of “Gala Ballada” answers the insistence that emerges from the keys and chimes in the early going of “Himmelheber” in ways that make the album a deeper listening experience and give a more complex impression of the band on the whole.
Further evidence of an underlying plan at work is the manner in which “Flatlanders” picks up with acoustic guitar where “Dorian” left off, taking its first minute for an introductory exploration before the organ-backed swing and strutting lead electric guitar kick in to unfold the ‘meat’ of the song itself. There’s character in “Flatlanders” beyond the organic tonality of the band itself and the bit of tambourine they toss in shortly before mellowing out at the halfway mark. The patience in that trade, in pulling back, is crucial to understanding the band, and that they don’t rush back into ‘the heavy part’ communicates their potential all the more. Instead, “Flatlanders” makes its way through a build of guitar and keys.
Yes, the tambourine returns at the end, but the four-piece do well to focus on getting there as much as where they’re going, where they’ve been. The penultimate “Galyxo” is the longest cut on side B at 6:29, and by then the course is set. Lucid Void lean a bit into the rhythmic urgency of Slift but not necessarily the sensory-overload of volume, and when they turn from the buzz-fuzz and sharp snare to the more open flow for the second time, the result in what you might call the song’s payoff if the whole thing wasn’t the payoff arrives at thicker distortion and riffier push only as part of its overarching purpose toward heavy psychedelia.
“Galyxo” is satisfying enough to be the crescendo of Lucid Void, and is all the more appropriate to think of in those terms because it doesn’t lose itself in the moment it creates, but the concluding “Suns,” which is the shortest inclusion at 5:08 seems to allow the listener space to daydream. There’s definite forward movement, a particularly post-Koglek rhythm to the riff that some of the song works around, but in the finale as well, Lucid Void show they’re up to the task of incorporating influences into their own approach rather than carbon-copying what came before. More than an epilogue as the closer, “Suns” is languid in its groove and the last guitar solo and standalone-piano ending feel placed in order to leave off with no less consciousness-of-self (as opposed to being self-conscious in an insecure sense) than they executed “Himmelheber,” “Dorian,” or “Flatlanders.”
Which is to say, if Lucid Void didn’t write these songs specifically to be put where they are on the record, they sound like they did, and that might actually be more of an accomplishment. That’s doubly true on a debut full-length, where the task is as much about making a first impression on new listeners as establishing at least some facets of the aesthetic scope the band will explore. Lucid Void sound fresh in their not-overwrought, semi-psychedelic prog, and are able to shape their material in order to evoke and emotional response without vocals. Wherever they ultimately end up in terms of sound, that ability can only be an asset, as it most certainly is here.
Lucid Void, Lucid Void (2023)
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