Lycia - a line that connects

The 10th album by dark-wave legends Lycia and fully reuniting the classic line-up of the band. So is a return to the classic sound? Well Lycia cover so many bases from full on doom to ethereal to (gothic) synth pop and the latter is present on the album highlight "The rain". The album covers a number of moods and at times connects to Lycia in what many regard its best period and sound in the 90s but the sound is also forward looking and complicated, textured and melancholic. "Monday is here" is a prime example of that, a downbeat meander that erupts into a sonic tidal wave.

Lycia - the burning circle and then dust (Silber CD)

This is the fourth album by Lycia, the darkwave / doomgaze producing a really solid (as in dense) piece of work here. The songs are epic, big booming omnious goth noise classics reminding me sometimes of the likes of Fushitsusha. Multi-layered reverb guitar effects echo amid pounding drums accompanying whispered vocals which sound like they come straight from the underworld.

Its not a heavy album but its pure emotion, the tones and feel tug at your heart strings and your soul like the anguish at the end of the world. The epic "A presence in the woods" starts things off with a slow ponderous yet darkly beautiful rock noise, and the album more or less continues on from that in the same vein.

Songs like "pray" sound like the soundtrack to the desolation of the end, but amid all the noise is hope maybe, a spark. There is a lot to like here and a lot to hear too, originally this was a double album lasting nearly 2 hours but the Silber edition has been edited slightly to fit on one disc. An (almost) endless descent into doom.