Review: Lana Laws - Kalasin
Lana Laws in her bio, describes herself as: "A transgender multi-instrumentalist and innovator, Lana Laws has gone from relative obscurity to national identity in only a few short years. The creative mind behind progressive metal project, ‘Kalasin’, Lana uses her talents for singing, keyboards, guitar, and bass to create symphonic metal compositions that flow with definitive grandeur. "
So does the music live up to the hype? Let's find out for ourselves!
The first song, "The Chasing of Perfidious Mists" reminded me of bands ranging from Stratovarius to
Reinxeed or Sonata Arctica to the mighty X Japan, if only for the regal piano melodies that become more prevalent later in the song. I noticed early on that this is a (mostly) instrumental project, which to some may not seem appealing, but being a musician myself and someone into instrumental projects/songs, I definitely can appreciate.
The second song is "The Mutilation of Heritage" and it comes in with a very "tribal" sounding intro and "middle eastern" style melody. Very cool and classy I would say! It proceeds with an almost Black Metal style of orchestration, going into a more majestic section and then a more extreme section again, complete with blast beats.
The next song, "Identity : Prosperity: Obscenity" continues with the Eastern feel of the prior song, and features a novel beginning that has some Electronica inserted. The song goes to some more slightly dissonant sections and again, a more hopeful piano interlude.
The following song, "To Glidge The Competing Winds To Freedom" almost reminded me of a mid-Nineties Castlevania video game (think Symphony of the Night) if the original had a full band soundtrack. Reminding me of some of my favorite acts such as (especially early) Arcturus, to me this was the standout song of the album.
I also dug the drum (programming?) on this one, more so than some of the earlier tracks especially. The next song, "A Tortured Score" continues sort of in a similar vein, though a bit more mid-paced and cleverly quotes Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera at a certain point (see if you can spot this).
"One Final Swell, The Fatigued Orchestra Retires, Farewell" is the second to last track and kind of recalls the early tracks that had more of a power metal influence. I liked the dreamy atmosphere on this song, as well as the drums. The album concludes with "The Skin That I'm In", which is a huge departure from the previous proceedings. Reminding one of mid-period Hypocrisy both with guitar tone, vocal feel and also general vibe, this is an angrier, more guitar oriented track that almost nearly scraps the keyboards that are lushly placed on the rest of the album.
Now onto the bad of the album: There aren't a lot of bad things to say, but I would definitely have recommendations. Instrumental or mostly instrumental music is an extremely tricky genre to get right, especially within the metal medium.
I would say some things could've spiced up some of the songs, like more shred style guitar, or a seperate melody that is more "vocal like" without having to have vocals. Guitarists like Steve Vai or Joe Satriani have wide appeal because they are able to have a melodic theme develop above the rest of the music, and while Lana definitely has a huge amount of melody at her disposal, a few of the songs sound a bit hollow as far as lacking this intriguing bit.
A band like Behold The Arctopus is instrumental, but since they shift so much in modes and riffs it becomes a thing all it's own.
For the (somewhat) more straightforward music Lana plays, it would only benefit the music to have more of a simple melody going over a few of the song to make things more "catchy", though most of the time, it definitely transcends this issue and it's definitely only a few of the songs that suffer from this "ailment".
I also found the music a bit unbalanced as far as mix and mastering goes. A few songs are a bit too compressed and a few songs not as much. This is a relatively small quibble as most of the time I was too enveloped in the music to care, but a few times it was definitely noticeable.
One last critique would be the drums. I am not certain that the drums are programmed, but if they are, I think there are a few parts that could use a smoother way of programming, or better yet, an actual drummer to do session work. Bands ranging from Limbonic Art to the Sisters of Mercy can make programmed drums work, in part because they add to the atmosphere and are programmed in a way to do such things, but in the case of the project in question, it seems to be begging for a drummer to do a more organic recording.
Overall though, this is definitely a project to keep one's eyes on in the future, and I would recommend it to people who dig dark dramatic symphonic metal.
You can find out more about Lana Laws from the following links, and make sure to also watch the video version of the review below:
https://lanalaws.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.deezer.com/en/album/83787052
https://open.spotify.com/album/7eXjvzAdHhLNrWAyOd2fkl
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/kalasin/1448947608
https://www.amazon.com/Kalasin-Lana-Laws/dp/B07M7G6RVB
https://play.google.com/music/preview/Blghzqqxpmdqk5s6hj5tj2jta6y?play=1
https://www.iheart.com/artist/lana-laws-31699834/albums/kalasin-67765102/
www.instagram.com/lanalawsmusic
www.twitter.com/lanalawsmusic
www.snapchat.com/lanalawsmusic
www.youtube.com/lanalawsmusic
www.soundcloud.com/lanalawsmusic
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