The World Under Unsun by Lunatic Soul

Lunatic Soul's masterpiece, The World Under Unsun, just released in 2025.

Lunatic Soul is a side project by Polish musician Mariusz Duda, singer and bassist for the legendary  Riverside, founded in 2008. Duda blends progressive, ambient, electronic, and folk styles. His sound is atmospheric and often dark.

 

The World Under Unsun is the final chapter in an eight-album story titled "The Circle of Life and Death," in which a lone artist-traveler journeys between life and death.

 

It's a double LP, 14 tracks totaling approximately 90 splendid minutes.

The album opens with The World Under Unsun the title track, featuring a continuous rhythmic progression with keyboard sounds for a long, intense and mysterious intro. The song then begins with a light, rhythmic, elaborate, and atmospheric vocal. The song is full of tension and mystery, with percussion and electronic rhythms, an almost robotic voice, a continuous and precise bass, irregular tempos, and a beautiful, never-invasive guitar. It closes with the same initial theme on piano and a light whistle. A beautiful piece.

 

Loop of Fate begins with a long intro based on acoustic percussion, with synth lines that create a suspended atmosphere even when the ethereal and light vocals enter. Deep bass punctuates the song's most intense moments. The main theme is constantly repeated with vocals that often sound like speech. The bass hovers deeply over the continuous rhythmic base, and the distorted guitar has a distant sound. The guitar and bass riff in unison is beautiful, and then the song attempts a controlled explosion, closing with a beautiful sax solo—a truly atmospheric piece.

 

Good Memories Don't Want to Die has a beautiful acoustic guitar opening and a great vocal performance with an excellent range. The song is very sweet and emotional, enriched by guitar plucking and light drumming that only comes in later, when the song takes on a songlike structure. A beautiful track.

 

Monsters begins with a great syncopated bass riff, guitar, and synth, creating an atmosphere of tension and "electronic mystery." The vocals are spoken and full of emphasis. The tempo has a medieval feel, and the rhythmic foundation is omnipresent; the synth and guitar do a splendid job on this.

 

The Prophecy opens with an echoing electric piano and ethereal vocals, in a slow, intense, expansive, and sunny progression, with an ethereal and dreamy atmosphere, an epic medieval pace. The drums come in, setting the pace, followed by the drums, and the beautiful electric guitar in a great solo. This epic section features synths that emphasize the deep, intense sounds until the vocals return with a splendid chorus. The guitar then kicks in with a riff of remarkable emotional charge. This is the album's top track, truly beautiful, with a finale that can't help but evoke Wilsonian atmospheres.

 

Mind Obscured, Heart Eclipsed begins with the deep synth sounds that close the previous track, enriched by a carpet of higher sounds and impressive overlapping harmonies in a long, ambient, instrumental intro that builds as the synth soars over the splendid, complex bass rhythm, pressing with the rhythm guitar marking the tempo in unison.

Layered sounds intertwine and overlap in splendid polyrhythms. Sumptuous bass. It cannot help but evoke psychedelic atmospheres. Variations in the sounds fade in and out until the bass takes over, becoming both a solo and a rhythmic base. Then the pace suddenly changes and a syncopated electric guitar takes over, epic in its medieval pace. The song becomes decisive and tense with an electronic rhythmic base that fits the mood perfectly. A riot of overlapping rhythms, including the voice, which, with a light singing, becomes a musical instrument alongside the others. The song is rich in nuance even when it slows down and becomes purely ambient with the wind instruments, which could fit into a Vangelis soundtrack. A beautiful, suspended and interlocutory phase follows, intense and engaging until a prog ride kicks in with a powerful drum and bass rhythm, over which the synths play with the enormous bass work to mark the time. Then the barges enter with a riff that follows the bass in unison, culminating in a light-hearted close to this magnificent piece.

 

Torn in Two opens with piano and beautiful, melodic vocals that shine in a romantic and intense mood. Great synergy between piano and vocals with choruses and echoes. A beautiful melodic piece with a hopeful mood and great breadth. A beautiful composition that is complemented by a discreet, light electronic rhythmic base at the end that closes the first LP.

 

Hands Made of Lead begins with an intro of spacey synths and bass inlays, spoken words, and a beautiful piano riff, followed by electric piano. The song begins with an intense opening, with powerful drums and distorted electric guitar creating a tense atmosphere bordering on progressive metal, over which the piano uninterruptedly builds. The song builds to an epic and eclectic crescendo when the splendid sax begins its magnificent solo. Variations on the theme are traced by the complexity of the hypnotic and metronomic bass. The synths begin to play over the metal base, overlapping sounds with syncopated rhythms in an orderly chaos of dissonances and polyrhythms. A remarkable feat of composition and execution. A top track for its intensity and complexity.

 

Ardour is an epic ride, traced by the pressing, medieval-style bass, epic vocals that chorally follow the melody, and synths that create the atmosphere. The rhythm and electric guitar are beautiful against this dense and intense backdrop of sounds. The voices become whispers at the end.

 

Game Called Life is my favorite track on the album, featuring a folk feel with a slightly oriental feel, accentuated by low synth sounds and deep drums. The piano break is beautiful, immediately giving way to a completely electronic section bordering on '90s Krautrock, with syncopated rhythms and elaborate vocals. Intersecting rhythmic sounds and choral vocals with acoustic guitar create a tense atmosphere and a wonderful overlapping of styles. A fantastic track.

 

Confession begins with a captivating guitar riff and vocals, a melodic and intense song from the very first bars, an electro-acoustic ballad with a long acoustic section enriched by synths with slight dissonances that heighten its intensity. Then the drums add the rhythm, which forms the basis for long electric guitar riffs in a solo that, combined with the vocals, makes the song absolutely atmospheric and psychedelic. Beautiful.

 

Parallels is another top track on the album, featuring deep bass and echoing, rhythmic electronic sounds. A wide array of sounds glide and become inlays on the slow, undulating substratum in a long, atmospheric section over which the guitar plays a light acoustic riff. A rhythmic interweaving of bass and electronic sounds, echoing and melodic, a sort of musical mandala, a kaleidoscope of diverse and harmonious overlapping sounds, musical fractals. Fantastic.

 

Self in Distorted Glass begins with deep percussive sounds, acoustic guitar, and vocals, with a sustained folk-inspired rhythm that continues throughout the song, interspersed with short choruses and guitar flourishes, while the vocals are intense. The guitar sounds are at times reminiscent of the King Crimson trilogy (particularly "Discipline"). The post-folk feel of alien tribes dancing the war dance is compelling and engaging. The electric guitar also plays a distorted solo in an almost oriental-like melody. The song closes with piano and whispered vocals, and the gentle sound of waves crashing on the beach, slow and soothing like the accompanying melody. A wonderful, top-notch track.

 

The New End closes this splendid work with piano and vocals, a captivating piece with a beautiful melody and beautiful, intense, and expansive vocals. A hopeful and romantic mood is created by a superb vocal and piano performance. An intense, delicate, and at times moving piece that closes with a splendid piano riff.

 

The artwork is visually striking.

 

This album is undoubtedly a masterpiece, with a wide variety of styles fused together in an exceptional way. I found epic medieval atmospheres, post-folk, eclectic prog, psychedelic rock, progressive metal, and krautrock, but also romantic, intense, and passionately melancholic tracks, piano, synth, and acoustic percussion, electronic harmonies, great complexity, splendid compositions, vocal harmonies, dissonances, and polyrhythms.

A rhythmic interweaving of electronic and acoustic sounds, echoing and melodic, a sort of musical mandala, a kaleidoscope of diverse and harmonious overlapping sounds, musical fractals.

A true masterpiece of genre layering and reworking, with acoustic instruments and piano, folk choral vocals, electronic instruments, synths, and percussion intertwining in perfect balance—overall, something absolutely new that could define a new genre within this century's prog, something much-needed.

 

The work of all the band members is outstanding, and the bass is particularly incisive, bordering on perfection, with rhythmic and melodic virtuosity, depth, and precision to the extreme.

 

This album is already a MUST.

Note: All links to the musicians' works are in the TAGS under the article title or on the "Artists" page.

LineUp

- Mariusz Duda - vocals, bass, piccolo, acoustic guitar, piano, keyboards, percussion, programming

With:
- Wawrzyniec Drumowicz - drums
- Marcin Odyniec - saxophone
- Mateusz Owczarek - soundscapes