Review
Lunaire
With the Same Smiles as Those Days

Australia’s Lunaire first released a well-received demo in 2010 which was followed up by a lauded split with the American cross-coast project Airs. Now Lunaire offer their first EP, With the Same Smile as Those Days, which continues the quartet’s dreamy post-rock from earlier releases and steps forward as a band to watch out for.

The four track EP combines beautifully sorrowful melodies with huge crescendos of sound and hooks that burrow ever deeper with each listen. The gentle noise of a babbling stream is imbued with the sweet sounds of birds and an echoing and seemingly out of tune, processed guitar strikes whilst the introductory “The Landscape across the River” flows with a peaceful essence that gets right to the heart of Lunaire almost immediately. “Last Days of Summer” bursts with a freshness and clarity that feels full of life and a wonder and what might come to pass. Many bands of this style seem content to wallow in misery but Lunaire are so brightly open that there’s a lovely sense of hope and possibility laced within their music.

Sweet and low-mixed vocal lines appear throughout the recording, and rather than being a focal point of the tracks they are left to float on the breeze left by the superbly uplifting instrumental atmospheres. Serene soundscapes twist and turn with a bright passion and Lunaire gently take you on their journey into introspection and anticipation. “Two Shadows” sways with the tender touch of loss but the knowledge that it’s not all doom and gloom and that, yes, things can and will get better.

With the Same Smiles as Those Days closes on the desperately melancholic “The Path Home” which lays a whispered vocal beneath a stronger line; a loose tranquillity washes over the song before the break and a much more bombastic guitar riff feeds into the movement of the track with a fiery enthusiasm. Lunaire are certainly a band that knows how to pull on your heartstrings and they manage to sound all at once sad but optimistic. Lovely.