Navigating You Through the Progressive Underground

Style: progressive rock, folk (clean, female vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Tarja Turnnen, Pain of Salvation, Iamthemorning, Nightwish
Review by: Dylan
Country: Israel
Release date: 20 April 2019

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the April 2019 issue of The Progressive Subway.]

There’s something strangely beautiful about this album. While I’m still not sure how to define it, the closest I can think of is folk that has a big focus on vocals, so big that there’s a lot of moments that a simple acoustic guitar is the only thing accompanying this lady’s beautiful voice.

Thanks to this, the atmosphere present on this record is super unique, vibrant and emotional. If an album like this had a shitty singer, it’d be unlistenable, but the vocals are so beautiful and soaring that they become the driving force of the entire album. Each song has its distinct elements; there’s unusual percussion, violins, acoustic guitars, distorted guitars, accordions, electronic drums, acoustic drums, and many more instruments. Yet even with all of those instruments, everything is still kept to a minimum, which is both the album’s best feature and it’s biggest drawback. There’s times where all I want to hear is this lady’s majestic voice, but at other times there’s a fantastic melody that goes away all too soon or it’s just too low in the mix. This hurts the most when the album starts to get heavy, but then pulls out and starts again with its folk shenanigans again.

I think that if the band made this an EP and kept the strongest tracks (mentioned below) the result would have been better. This doesn’t mean that Lotus Graveyard is unsalvageable, instead, the total opposite. There’s a lot to absorb and enjoy here, but it’s definitely a love it or hate it scenario. 


Recommended tracks: I’m Too Close, Monster, Black Holes
You may also like: Subsignal, Kingcrow, Circle of Illusion
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | RYM page

Label: Independent

Tillian is:
– Leah Marcu (vocals)
– Yadin Moyal (guitars)
– Alexandra Marcu (cello)
– Yanai Avnet (bass)
– Yoav Weinberg (drums)


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