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“They’re a heavy, intense and mesmerising maelstrom of wind-tunnel vocals, drones, treated guitar and shamanic rhythms…with innate beauty too.” – Mojo

Lucidvox’s new album is vast-sounding. A collection of swirling ritual missives offered up in the hope of better times. Formerly based in Russia, for their new album That’s What Remained, the all-female quartet has added additional sonic thrust (horns, keyboards, strings, atmospheric textures) to their already acclaimed and impassioned psych-rock.

Speaking to Vogue in 1970, the 20th century modernist writer Vladimir Nabokov stated that, “The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.” This is an easily transferable maxim; style often being – if inadvertently – a clearer mirror to the soul than other artistic considerations.

Nabokov’s words could have been said of Lucidvox’s second long player, That’s What Remained: here, style reveals the soul.

The first thing that strikes the listener when diving in is the sheer scale, and breadth, of the sound. And the directness of the music. The outlines of the arrangements are drawn in with strong bold strokes using a thick, warm line. Closer inspection reveals a wealth of detail, and perspectives that surprise. Deliberate twists of a phrase, the odd synth passage or guitar lick add yet more emotional hinterland. The melodies are often simple, but determined and forced home to make their point; and though they resemble the playground rhymes documenting the childhood memories the band holds dear, maybe there is no time for being too clever, or allusive, right now. This is their style going forward, nothing here is given to chance, or left in as a beautiful accident.

That’s What Remained cannot be anything other than a Lucidvox record – that firebird qua.......
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