Four years after the release of the first chapter, MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY close the circle of the ambitious "Biolume" trilogy with "A Fullmoon Madness", a mammoth triple album wrapped in a new phantasmagorical cover painting by Elijah Tamu.
Acting as a stylistic summa of the Australian one-man band, "A Fullmoon Madness" collects all the metal nuances explored by Dis Pater in the previous episodes and in its career. Once again, cosmic black metal bigger than the nightsky and the crushing heaviness of epic doom metal are bound together by dark wave synths, grandiose symphonic arrangements and Dis Pater's heartfelt vocal performance, oscillating between raven screaming and sumptuous clean chants to underline the lunar character of the music.
"This chapter embraces the moonlit night sky and the personification and mythology around Selene/Luna," Dis Pater explains. "The moon in itself is a ‘dead’ object. Its light is a pure reflection, yet we are drawn to it in ways that are both haunting and romantic."
Inspired by the madness imbued by a full moon, by the fear of a lunar eclipse, and by the tale and curse of Endymion, MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY's "A Fullmoon Madness" looks at light in the context of where it comes from.
"In absolute darkness, the smallest light can be enough; in pure overbearing light, you look for the shade or darkness," Dis Pater says. "Somewhere in between allows you to be blinded by neither, the moon reflects just enough light for us to look into the darkness and see what’s really there. And sometimes what’s there is corrupted, burning, distorted and not what you hoped to see. This spark of light is maddening. Sometimes it consumes you, and something monstrous or terrifying takes control."
All these ideas have evolved musically into what is the darkest and most aggressive album of the trilogy, but with the touches of melancholy and the symphonic grandeur typical of MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY's astral funerals. "It's death," concludes Dis Pater, "but not as we know it."