The wave of quality metal from Italy seems to keep rolling.

One of the latest releases from the rapidly expanding Punishment 18 Records is death/thrash/semi-prog metallers Lunarsea’s ‘Route Code Selector’.

The album is marked by a considerable musicianship: It holds great variation and brings in elements of death, black, thrash and prog in appropriate amounts. It contains massive brutality, yet melody, intelligent use of keyboards and the occasional clean vocal. The songs are nicely wrought, tightly played and the production is decent.

I have little negative to say apart from one detail which, you could argue, matters little when it’s hard to understand lyrics anyway. But since the band has insisted on including the lyrics in the very nice booklet and I therefore assume that they put some meaning into their words, I’d recommend that they have someone double check not only the spelling but also if the lyrics make sense for their next release. Some of the lyrics are either extremely deep or pure gibberish, and I’m inclined to stick to the latter explanation.

A random pick:

‘From the flame a sulphur’s shots, red than sun core, source of persecution, rocks cradle caress.’

I beg your pardon?!

But try it out – it sounds excellent by all accounts.