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Jullian’s Lullaby - Dreaming of Your Fears
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CD Reviews
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Written by Doctor T.
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Monday, 10 October 2011 |
CD Info
2011
Independent Release
11 Tracks
English Lyrics
There’s
a lot of good music coming out of Greece these days, I’ve probably
spent more time listening to music from the Cradle of Civilization than
from any other place the last several months, and all of it is
outstanding, and it seems like it gets better with each release. And
this may be the best so far, depending on your personal taste, of
course. The band is from Athens and they use a fair number of
performers. And my preference is for large casts, although I can
understand that not everyone can put 400 on stage like Therion does on a
regular basis. Here we get a double female vocal lead with Margina and
Efthimia who do a decidedly classical approach that regularly moves to
the operatic in style. However, there are a lot of instrumentalists as
well, and a solid male death vocal, everything you need musically along
with some first rate production, song writing and lyrics, after the
fashion of all Greek Gothic. The instrumental includes the traditional
guitars and percussion augmented by a serious violin component, a flute
and some significant symphonic provided through the usual approaches.
There are some other performers as well, this is no 4 man, er, woman
band. And they have produced a Gothic sound that is outstanding across
the board, the hard stuff, the beautiful, the dark and the mysterious.
It shouldn’t take long figure out whether or not you like this material, here’s an intro,
the second cut from the CD entitled Scarlet Reign. You get much of the
band’s sound, that solid dual vocal, the violins, the symphonic, the
solid guitars. The song is a pretty good cover of what the band has to
offer. But, there are other directions that appear in other songs, as
well as additional musicians and / or vocalists. Here we
get a third female vocalist in another of the CD’s more metal sounding
productions, even as it begins with a soft violin followed by an
acoustic guitar, sounds that appear regularly throughout the music. This
one is Kiss Me Not (Tonight), and again, the music moves around between
styles as we progress but always with the solid female vocals that are
consistent on every track.
Interestingly enough, as I was
listening to the CD for the first time, I was completing Lynda
LaPlante’s Gothic tale The Red Dahlia, a novel based on the infamous
Black Dahlia murder case from the 40s in Los Angeles. And the physical
CD fit in perfectly, especially the color from the CD, which can be seen
here.
And the music, and even more so, the lyrics, seem to fit this dark
tale. On this cut, Where We Stand There We Fall, we get an almost
perfect interpretation for this Gothic direction:
And I crossed the line / Between sense and madness
Walked inside mud, / Blood and storm
Nature’s gift is our treasure / Never did I forget
what is left behind / written in the stars / written in our hearts
One moment can last forever
Dahlia
indeed. . . . and that dark violin can only serve to enhance the
insanity that is so much a part of that tale, and a part of this Gothic
sound as well. The song, according to guitarist Elias Negrin, " talks
about war and battle as experienced by a soldier away from home trying
to defend his land." However, alternative interpretations are clearly
appropriate, especially given the overwhelming red background. Elias
talked about that background saying, " Katia's work on the CD is another
interesting part (to me) as she is non that familiar with our music
style and has a fairly personal taste which I like (of course) since
seems quite different from the usual staff around." It does provide a
perfect interpretation, going especially well with the Scarlet Reign
track.
Membership in Jullian’s Lullaby seems to be a flexible
commodity. We have the two main female leads, Margina and Efthimia, or
Aprilia as she is called locally, and a range of additional performers.
And they include a number of styles. According to Elias: " Savvas
Betinis (member of "Acid Death" and "Kinetic" also) has done brutal male
vocals on CD. He is an old friend of mine and gladly accepted our
invitation to participate in the album." It’s not a sound you get all
the time in Greek Gothic but it is very well done and adds a relevant
quality to the overall tone of the music. Additionally, again according
to Elias, "The third female vocalist appearing as a guest in ‘Kiss me
not tonight’ live video, is Efrossene Papamichalopoulou ex-member of the
band who did all female vocals in ‘I can hear you thinking...’ demo CD
(2008). We are good friends and have worked together in some other
projects since 2001." Again, flexibility seems to be the order of the
day. And it doesn’t relate strictly to the vocals, it includes the
instrumental components . Elias explains, "Symphonic parts are mostly
samples (programmed by myself) except for violins that are performed by a
real player (Triantafyllos Vavatsikos), and flute in ‘Disinfecting my
heart’ performed by Ioanna Karaveva." Anytime you can get this many top
flight musicians to participate in a focused effort you are likely to
see a positive result, and that seems to be the case here.
Music
doesn’t seem to be the only place where "guests" are utilized. There was
a "guest" lyricist involved also, one Anna Spanogiorgou from
Thessaloniki, hometown of SC writer Frozen Angel. Must be something in
the water there since both are outstanding at their crafts. Anna
provides a slightly different lyrical style in Disinfecting My Heart
where there is both a sung and spoken vocal. We begin with a mournful
vocal of regret, one of pain, sung by the vocalists over the soulful
violin. But, midway through the song, the tone changes, words become
spoken and the direction is altered. The lyrics lose their softness and
move to a harsher direction:
Filled with hate my sick mind
Is my holy temple now
I am leaving you behind
I am now the unkind
The
final two tracks cover similar ground. The song is Just For That Day,
and, again, we go to the dark and remorseful. The first cover includes
lyrics, dark lyrics, but done with a metal sound:
Feel the emptiness
Live the pain
Defeat your loneliness
For just one day
It’s
a haunting song, beautiful but sung with a dark, mournful tone, a
violin that provides an almost Transylvanian sound. But, the second
version is an acoustic approach to the same song, done with similar
keyboards, with the same vocals, the violin that maintains the same
feeling of loss, but with that different sound that one gets with an
acoustic component. A little more symphonic maybe, but it gives the song
a completely different feel. Amazing what one minor alteration can do
for a song.
Jullian’s Lullaby is a different approach to the
standard Greek Gothic, which is outstanding to begin with. But here we
get a bigger interpretation to that sound, more vocals, more instruments
and a greater variety to the musical structure as well as the lyrical
direction. It takes a lot of people to make something this diverse, and
this sophisticated. And bigger is, at least in this case, better. And I
count that as a 10. As big as it gets.
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