LUNATICA
The Edge of Infinity
Frontiers Records 2006
www.lunatica.ch

What’s the 4-1-1?
The Swiss rock sextet release their follow up to the 2004 album Fables & Dreams.

Genre
Hard Rock / Power Metal / Melodic Rock

The Good
The tight arrangement and quick tempo of the title track really gets the album jumping from the beginning. You can pretty much fall in love with singer Andrea Datwyler’s voice listening to her performance throughout the disc. Her voice is equally adept at the power rock songs as it is with the slower tempo tracks. You can see her shine best on the tracks “Words Unleashed”, “Song For You”, “Who You Are” and “Together.”

The band really surprised me with the level of musicianship on this album. It’s a musical tour de force. The guitar tandem of Andre Leuenberger and Sandro D’Incau are quite good. The guitar riff opening on “Together” gets that anthemic rocker off to an amazing start. The stand out track to me was “Sons Of The Wind.” The entire band shined brightly on this fast paced up tempo song.

The Bad
The sequencing of the two versions of “Emocean” back to back was a might bit irritating. The songs are basically the same save the second version featuring singer Oliver Hartmann. Both versions of the song are good but putting them back-to-back to end the album is asking a bit much. The ballad “The Power Of Love” left me a bit flat. The track is crafted well enough, but it just does not really rise to the level of ballad greatness.

The Verdict
The easy comparison for any female fronted rock band these days is Evanescence if the band is more gothic oriented or Nightwish if it’s more of a progressive metal bent to the music. Lunatica falls more on the Nightwish side. However, the quality of the music sets the band apart from being just another carbon copy. Lunatica is definitely NOT a carbon copy of Nightwish. The group really surprised the heck out of me on The Edge Of Infinity. The high quality songwriting and performance only serve to whet the appetite for more from the group.

Did You Know?
The spoken word dialogue on the track “Introduction” was performed by Swiss vocalist Dieter Meier. He’s best known for his work with the duo Yello. The male singer on the duet “Song For You” is Asia vocalist John Payne.

Rating: out of 5

-- Jay Roberts