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Review:
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Fright Night is a gothic rock project by singer, guitarist
and composer Marianna ‘Winter’ Lukyanova and her band. She
is joined on lead vocals by Alexey ‘Ergil’ Ovsiyenko who
has an extraordinary deep voice akin to Brad Roberts of
Crash Test Dummies fame, and his spoken passages are especially
effective and atmospheric. It is a welcome change to have
a male vocalist who actually sings rather than growls, I
wish more gothic band would take note. Marianna also has
a deep dramatic voice, so you get double deepness, an unusual
combination. Their music is a unique blend of The Fields
of Nephilm, gothic era Damned, The Mission, Lacrimosa, Skeletal
Family, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Camel and Ennio
Morricone spaghetti western. ‘His Death’, ‘The Blood’, ‘We
Will Go’, ‘The Cross and the Pyre’, ‘Black’ and my favourite
‘The Letter of the End’ are all multi faceted songs with
a wide variety of textures and tones, from the melancholic
to the rocking. The mournful ‘The Summon’ features just
Winter and piano, and the ghostly ‘Two Roses’ has Ergil
narrating over a backing of Winter’s flanged guitar arpeggios
and howling winds. ‘Rainbow Demon’ is a cover of the song
by that behemoth of British heavy rock, Uriah Heep, which
they turn into a spaghetti western, I expected a dust covered
Lee Van Cleef to walk through the door! The most remarkable
song is ‘Christopher Lee’, Ergil’s narrated paean to the
master of horror with the equally deep voice, which sounds
like the sort of off kilter lounge jazz that Leonard Cohen
does so well. The highly melodic music is full of superb
keyboards, and Winter’s guitar work is most excellent, especially
her solo on ‘The Letter of the End’. A special mention must
also be made of the deep and very poetic lyrics. I will
sum it up as progressive spaghetti gothic jazz alt rock,
which just about covers all bases. The obvious customer
base is gothic rocks fans, but it will also appeal to fans
of off beat artists like Lou Reed. Available from CD Baby,
and their Myspace is http://www.myspace.com/frightnightband
. Frightfully good stuff, 8.5 out of 10.
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