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VAMPIRIC VISIONS VOL. I: LIVING BLOOD
VAMPIRIC VISIONS VOL. I: LIVING BLOOD
Lady Luna and the Devil's story begins with a classic sin: the search for knowledge. In 2020, as COVID-19's plague ravaged outside, the Devil retreated to his mansion in fabled Detroit, Michigan to master the guitar. His toils sparked an idea for a band: heavy metal inspired purely by horror and a love of storytelling, not imitating what's already been done. But it was only an idea, dark riffs and darker thoughts still lacking a voice. Enter Lady Luna, who lent her classically trained voice to the struggling heroines, plotting villainesses, and horrid creatures that fill the pages of Lady Luna and the Devil's deadly tales.
Within just months, the two released His Blessed Book, a celebration of women in horror: drawing on everything from Salem's Lot to Hocus Pocus. As the pair puts it, this album was meant "to bring doom to the world of men," and doom it brings: slow, menacing, and unusually elegant, His Blessed Book conjures thoughts of flickering candelabras, dark passageways, and horrifying crimes committed in the waning candlelight. The band cites King Diamond and Candlemass as inspirations–classic acts, of course–but banish any thoughts of rote imitation or limited influences. Any full conversation around what drives Lady Luna and the Devil would also need to include John Carpenter and Heart–the band's sound is a shifting, many-toothed beast.
This beast, as it happens, has a ferocious metabolism: 2021 soon brought the band's sophomore album Mother of All Sin. Here, no longer content with malevolent anthologies, Lady Luna and the Devil stepped into the realm of concept albums, penning a story of an enlightened Eve bringing the deadly sins to humanity and facing the deceitful Adam. With the newly-recruited Hands of Doom plotting out percussion, a wider, unified canvas gave the band more room to experiment musically beyond doom metal, discarding genre particulars in favor of focusing on what truly mattered to the trio: telling thrilling stories with unearthly atmosphere and crafting wicked riffs that suited these chronicles of sin.
Their latest album Vampiric Visions Vol. I: Living Blood, released in the chilling fall of 2022, is the band's most far-reaching and cinematic effort yet. This tale of loss, revenge, and mutation written in blood delivers suspenseful atmosphere and headbanging-friendly heavy metal. The Devil's riffs bite deeper here, more sinister than ever before, and the Hands of Doom bolsters his efforts with wrought-iron timekeeping and forceful fills. Lady Luna's haunting vocals blend bloody passion and ice-cold vengeance as they chart the evolving plot, which comes further alive through narration and vocal skits. It's easy to envision the events that unfold here taking place on a silver screen: the blood and snow that permeate the album's themes come alive in listeners' minds.
There are two more volumes to come in the story of Vampiric Visions, and Lady Luna and the Devil's story is only just beginning as well. Lady Luna's vocals have proved to be the perfect counterpoint to the Devil's riff-crafting and an instant selling point for new fans: expressive and refined, she lends an air of truly gothic horror to the band, which Vampiric Visions Vol. I: Living Blood capitalizes on to great effect. Coupled with the Devil's steadily-growing prowess with the six-string and the Hands of Doom's knack for baleful grooves, whatever comes next in the Detroit band's saga promises one thing for sure: terrifying delights best listened to in the dead of night.