Band:	Lunatic Soul
Album:	Under The Fragmented Sky
Style:	Experimental Ambient, Atmospheric Progressive rock
Release date:	May 2018

01. He Av En
02. Trials
03. Sorrow
04. Under The Fragmented Sky
05. Shadows
06. Rinsing The Night
07. The Art Of Repairing
08. Untamed

When Mariusz Duda of Riverside announced this album as both an anniversary of the Lunatic Soul project and as an extension of the previous album, Fractured, the question arose, will it be more like Amnesiac to Kid A, definitely similar and fitting together but able to stand on its own, or like Beyond Magnetic to Death Magnetic, acting as merely an addendum of extra stuff?

Duda himself said that Under The Fragmented Sky was supposed to be an EP, but he wound up with 36 minutes of material. Knowing this, it's understandable to go into the album expecting the latter answer to the question. The title track, which comes from a lyric in Fractured's "A Thousand Shards Of Heaven", is one of only two tracks, along with "Untamed", to contain any lyrics, and the only ones that feel like actual songs. Elsewhere, the lyrics are pretty much nonexistent, leaving room for Duda to experiment with sounds however he wishes.

And this creates an album with less of a conventional album feeling, sounding instead more like a collection of sound vignettes. And the electronic nature of the music did give me a similar feeling to something like Boards Of Canada, in the sound collage sense. Under The Fragmented Sky is no Geogaddi, but fans of either will surely enjoy the other, thus creating building blocks to bridge the gap between prog and electronic that has been left unattended since its glory days in the '70s with Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, and Jean Michel-Jarre. The track with the most obvious nods to the era is "The Art Of Repairing", which features some very retro-sounding synths. Add some 808s And Heartbreak Autotune to it and there's more bridges built already.

The album fittingly ends with "Untamed"; after walking us through a lot of enchanting sound experimentation, it feels like everything comes together in the end and it was a moment that the listener has to win. Duda's vocals are emotive all the way through, even through the lyric-less songs like "He Av En" or "The Art Of Repairing". The music goes from hopeful to cinematic to nostalgic, thus covering a wide array of moods in its short run time. Despite the experimental nature of the record, it is much more coherent that expected, even though there is some slight inconsistency in the flow.

Comparisons to Fractured are unneeded; this is a different kind of record. While Under A Fragmented Sky works better in pairs with its genesis album, there is not much holding it back from being enjoyed on its own, granted that you know how to approach it.