Lustre is back.
Created in 2008 in Sweden by Nachtzeit (all instruments/vocals, Inlandshjärta, Nachtzeit, ex-Hypothermia…), the musician released six albums, five EPs, two splits and a demo before closing the project in 2018. But he will return the following year with two compilations, then a new album in 2020. In 2022, he announced the release of A Thirst for Summer Rain, his eighth album, through Nordvis Produktion.
The album opens with Quiescence, a track which makes soft, soaring sounds coexist with heavy and dark riffs before welcoming ghostly howls in the background. The mesmerizing and haunting sound perfectly works and makes us lose the notion of time by offering an impressive regularity while giving keyboards an intense progression before nothingness gradually encompasses everything to drive us to Faith, an instrumental track based on the same contrast as the previous one. Slow riffs give these majestic and melancholic keyboards a special flavor and vice versa, sometimes leaving guitars aside for a calm instrumental part before returning to saturation. The very soft keyboard final will leave us before Thirst takes over with a similar combination as well as effaced screams as on the first track, creating a darker atmosphere than on the instrumental track. The album will end with Alleviation, another similar composition which will remove the vocal parts again from the soaring, atmospheric mix which shrouds us in its false sweetness.
I’m always happy to see that Lustre releases something. And even if A Thirst for Summer Rain is catchy and airy, we have to admit that the recipe never changes, which can lead to the audience getting bored, or to be buried under this sonic fog.
60/100