Lyraka Volume 1
| Lyraka Volume 1 | |
|---|---|
Cover art by Ken Kelly
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| Studio album by Lyraka | |
| Released | November 02, 2010 |
| Genre | Wagnerian rock, rock opera, progressive metal, progressive rock classic metal. |
| Producer | Andre Maquera, Andy DiGelsomina |
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Martin Popoff |   |
| Metal Rules |   |
| Classic Rock | |
Lyraka Volume 1 is the debut studio album from the Wagnerian opera metal project Lyraka. It was released on November 2, 2010.
The Lyraka opera was first conceived by Jasmine Lyraka in 2006. Her plans were for a multimedia fantasy experience: movie, website, video game, and a line of Ken Kelly artwork. Upon creating the characters and storyline for the original screenplay, she enlisted Andy DiGelsomina to begin writing music for the project. At first DiGelsomina's role was to score the script as a soundtrack, but as work progressed the project developed into a full blown metal opera. According to DiGelsomina's blog, "Lyraka as a musical project draws inspiration from the operas of The Who, King Diamond, and Richard Wagner, as well as the guitar hero stylings and concept albums of Uli Jon Roth."
The plot itself centers around the protagonist Neires, a rebellious metal head who finds an enchanted guitar and embarks upon a journey to find himself. The antagonists are Semmonet, Lilliput, and Scatherus. The Lyraka lyrics are influenced by the writings of Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Søren Kierkegaard, and are essentially allegorical.
This song serves as an invitation to the opera, and coincidentally introduces a recurrent theme: the reinforcement of belief in an ideal via repetition, vivid imagery, and hyperbole. Through the use of these techniques, the protagonists of this song make the underwater empire of Lyraka seem to be a paradise, abstractly conceived and thus inherently imperfect.
Another primary theme introduced in the song is the dichotomy between the "world above" (Errandia, desert), and "below" (Lyraka, oceanic). These two landmarks are based upon archetypes that the psychoanalyst Carl Jung expanded upon. The ocean depths represent the inner depths of subjective experience, while the desert symbolizes the "real world", or how "others" see you. The desert also represents the place where one takes his or her dreams, in order to subject them to the harshness of reality and thereby submit to them to trial by fire. How the landmarks oppose, interact, and complement each other is a vital variable in the development of the Lyraka story.
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