Lunatic Soul – The World Under Unsun: Album review

By Mike Ainscoe on 9th November 2025 • ( Leave a comment )

Mariusz Duda’s Lunatic Soul reaches its eighth and final installment. The result is a piece of work on an epic scale with some stunning highs.

Release date: 31st October 2025

Label: Inside Out Music

Format: DL / CD / vinyl

It seems that five years has passed since Through Shaded Woods – the previous Lunatic Soul album and one that explored the darkness of Slavic and Scandinavian folk. It was rather good and a world away from the more Progressive side of the musician and the man. Of course, Mariusz Duda had Riverside to keep him busy and with the Polish quartet taking a break, it seems time to bring closure to the current long term Lunatic Soul project.

MUSICAL ORIGINALITY

All eight albums form what is known as the “The Circle Of Life And Death” – a cohesive story in which a solitary artist-traveller journeys between life and death. Mariusz confesses how “Lunatic Soul gives me more room for musical originality than Riverside”. For this reason, refuse to acknowledge Lunatic Soul as a side project. “To me, there’s nothing secondary about Lunatic Soul. Musically and conceptually, it’s an equally important musical world – if not more important. Here, I can do literally anything.”

And he’s not wrong, as he displays a compendium of styles which have featured across the series of albums in one long sitting. There are few point where the Venn diagram between Riverside and Lunatic Soul cross over. Both Torn In Two (an emotive piano led ballad) and in particular, a spectacularly in its subtlety finale, The New End explores some of the aching longing vibe of Riverside’s insightful highs on The Night Before and River Down Below.

The New End brings closure to the Lunatic Soul cycle on an understated but moving arrangement. Four minutes amongst many where again piano, plus sensitive textures, a poetic and touching lyric and a perfect delivery are the perfect combination. Just when you thought Riverside’s The Night Before was the soundtrack of parting…

“Whether you want it or not
You’ll always be
A part of my soul“

BUT FIRST…

The title track has him singing how another story has come full circle against a hypnotic pulse. Electronic music in a progressive cloak, one of mystery and imagination like Arthur C Clarke’s tales. The bubbling electronic aspect is a constant thread, very much in line with the sounds which Steven Wilson toys with, playing off against simple piano, ominous industrial sonics and more acoustic, rustic and organic textures.

Those common threads include a stream of lyrical musings and reflections over our existence and mortality and the occasional release as found in Monsters where a bassy riff dances out of those shaded woods in middle ages jig. The riff count might be down but resurfaces in Mind Obscured, Heart Eclipsed, paired with minimal mood setting ambiences.

Parallels serves up a short and meandering percussive led soundscape that serves as an intro to a more world music feel to Self In Distorted Glass. No qualms about letting the muse loose if necessary, this time across ten minutes of musical journeying involving tribal pulses, echoing vocal sounds and a general air of ominous menace.

SHADED WOODS REVISITED

We head back to the shaded woods for the start of Game Called Life which slowly evolves into a pulsing electronic journey, packed with sequences over which Mariusz adds haunting vocalisms and a touch of the rustic. Shades too maybe of a Radiohead experimentation; a thought once planted, sprouts up again in various places. An album that explores an emotional depth, before the tug of the closing piece, Confession offering both poignancy and melancholy in the finest Duda tradition, against a subtle but swirling ethnic vibe.

Taking a moment to consider the creation of music in evoking an emotional response, at his most introspective and creative, Mariusz Duda has evolved into a master craftsman of the art. The progression and evolution of Lunatic Soul has almost intuitively led to this point. To this record and this finale that finds a warmth in the reflection of love and loss. A finale that provides triumphant closure.

Until the next darkness arrives; Steven Wilson, Jonas Renkse stand back here’s The New End – worth the price of admission alone and possibly the most beautiful piece of music from Mariusz Duda: