Band:	Luminaria
Album:	Arche
Style:	Gothic doom metal
Release date:	2005
A review by:	Jeff

01. Intro
02. Unreasonably Forlorn Hours
03. World Built On Sand
04. Irmão
05. Lust To Imprison
06. Obsession Elyséenne
07. The Arabesque
08. Al Aaraaf [bonus]

Luminaria is a young newcomer from Poland that uses to play a nice Gothic Metal a la Moonspell. "Arche" is just an EP, but it's obvious that Luminaria is a talented band, and when I see the quality of this release I already have a lot of great hopes for the first album of the band that should be released this year. If you're looking for a good new band that knows how to play nice Gothic music, please have a look on this review...

I don't know if you all remember the masterpiece that is "Irreligious" but if you remember it (I'm sure of it actually) I think that you can already understand how can sounds "Arche". This is not something extremely depressive or sad, sure it's dark and the ambiances are clearly Gothic but in general we're more in front of a catchy music than anything else. The really deep and loud vocals of Wojciech Wawoczny (really similar to the ones of Fernando Ribeiro) give this feeling that we can find in a lot of Gothic releases but it's not Gothic Music a la Dark Sanctuary for example.

The melodies are extremely good and it's probably the strong point of Luminaria. They wrote a bunch of cool songs, which feature a lot of catchy riffs with in addition a lot of nice melodies (produced by the guitars like by the keyboards). The result is really nice and it's a real pleasure to listen to it. But don't believe that the music of Luminaria is slow, like with Tiamat or Paradise Lost, we're in front of a real Metal band that uses real Heavy guitars riffs. Now I suppose that you understand that even if Luminaria plays Gothic music, it's impossible to forget Metal in the description of its music.

This CD is just an EP, but the production is excellent. The sound is really good and W Blasiak, who did lately the cover of the new Sodom and Moonspell, made the artworks. It's really professional and only gives super feeling for the future of the band.

"Arche" is a really nice surprise and I'm actually sure that we will hear a lot of good things about this band from Poland. They have a strong potential and I hope that you'll confirm my feeling after that you'll have a look on this EP. A super album for the fans of Gothic Metal...