Some seven years ago, before Myspace or even cd-demos, I read about this new American band (on a website). The demo contains both neofolk and more electronic experiments and was alright (my review of 24/8/00 is still up here somewhere). The band was signed by Eis & Licht, usually not the most innovating neofolk label and my interest in the genre went down, so I didn’t really follow Lux Interna anymore. Last Wave Gotik Treffen I saw their nice show in the Anker, a more mature and poppy approach with nice songs containing cello and violin too, so I looked their cds on the internet and downloaded them. “Absence And Plenum” (2002) is a rather typical neofolk album and not very good, “Ignis Mutat Res” (2004) also starts in this vein, but becomes much better in the second half, so I guessed I might just order the new album and see if the progress continued. The new album seems to leave behind the neofolk origins a bit and didn’t follow the more poppy sound that most neofolk bands have turned to, but more focus is put on the cello and violin and the sound reminds me often of the German band Chamber (or l’Orchestre De Chambre Noire, see reviews), especially also because of the vocals. Whereas Chamber gives even more room to the classical influences, so much that I have described their music as “chamber music”, Lux Interna keeps holding the acoustic guitar and vocals (male and female) on the forefront, but the musical structure and atmosphere can no longer be really described as “neofolk”. Another difference between the two bands is that Lux Interna has left the music modest and melancholic, while Chamber also had some light-footed songs. “God Is Not Dead For The Birds” has become a nice album, not really groundbreaking, but also not slavely following the path that the scene sets out. Furthermore it is well-contructed and well-recorded so all in all a nice listening experience.
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Links: Lux Interna, Eis & Licht Tonträger