Album Review: Lunar Brightshine and Fiery Splendour (Frown)

Frown's debut album,, is a decent album in my gothic collection and has interesting sound to it. Then there's a fine follow-up with a rather spooky title, Lunar Brightshine and Fiery Splendour. There are 12 songs, four of them last less than three minutes including the spoken intro "Forever in Love" then organ-rich track "Demonstration of Irresistibility". "Last Summer Days" has such rhythms that remind them that summer will soon be over. The reason for being one of the weaker tracks is not because of that nature of reminder, but this song just doesn't get onto me strongly. Then there's "Salvation" and "Dryad", which has really cool guitar and organ mixed in them. "Praise the Autumn" goes further than last summer days, but this is a decent song with autumn ambient, tin can striking sounding, and really good section right in the middle. "Groaning/In the Middle of Mist" has a Godsmack-like beginning then the mist of doom envelops. "Moan" is a 24-second female echoey wail like it was recorded in a castle hall. "Rusty Flame" is doomy with high-pitch guitar tones and what sounds like high-pitch horn, then gets to the moshing part with horn and bouncy riffs that would make them feel energy. "Misty Rains Are Comin'" starts out with 🇹🇴 style of riffs then gets down into some kind of guitar and a piano. The next track begins with acoustic guitar and piano in duet. It sounds like that "Bewitch Me" lasting just shy of ten minutes should be the last track of the album, but this comes before organ-rich outro "Demon of Irritability" lasting just under three minutes. The musical makeup of "Bewitch" make listeners appropriately think this is the last song of the album. It has doom with really deep guttural vocals by Marian Drac that brings darkness. It also has thrashier parts in them that temporarily make the listener feel like they're in a brighter scene. Then the doom fades into nothing, that's how the album should end. In my album, I have "Demon" playing before "Bewitch".

Looking at the title, this album spotlights both the light and darkness to it. Their last album has a wintry feel, hence its title, but this album has more of the autumn feelings, plus even bits of feeling of late summer, as in "Last Summer Days"; however the wintry feel is still not absent. This and the other Frown album join  by October Noir and every Type O Negative album except for 🇹🇴 in my gothic collection.

6.8/10