Lucifer - I (2015)

   Even though the '70s hard rock vintage wave isn't so active and eventful as any nostalgia waves in the extreme underground, it can come up with very interesting projects indeed. One of them is Lucifer, a multinational band who leads back the listener to the crossroads of doom, heavy metal and hard rock.
   This direction of course makes it inevitable to "borrow" plenty of riffs from the one and only Black Sabbath, the band who paved the way for heavy metal and its subgenres. And unsurprisingly on the side of the sound quality, many themes are quite reminding to Black Sabbath. Similar to classic bands, there's pretty high focus on band's singer, Johanna Platow, who basically resurrected the occult doom metal femme fatale persona, that originally have been invested by Jinx Dawson of Coven. Except Frau Platow is (hopefully) not intending to ruin the whole image by switching to a radio pop direction. It's definitely not a role that would be easy to fill, since having a great voice isn't enough, must perform in a certain ominous (doom metal-like) style and have to stay authentic on stage as well. No wonder that there aren't many similar endeavors to find, but she at least successfully mastered the whole thing. By her performance the threatening embrace of darkness feels soft and magical. According to nowadays radio tendences their music counts pretty much as radio compatible (depends on country and region of course), but musically and by sound it's definitely heavier than most fellow vintage hard rock based bands. The vocal performance softening the main impression, and lyrically Lucifer is also not too explicit. Their more "decent" approach is the sign of a sort of elegance that was long lost from the genre during the '80s, when explicitness became one of the main tools of attention seeking. In total, for the fans of hard rock and the most ancient sound of heavy and doom metal, Lucifer's music might be enjoyable and nostalgic.