Boy, has this album been a tough one to decipher. I'm no stranger to the weirdness of the Czech metal scene, but this is one of the strangest, most

challenging Czech metal bands I've checked out so far. This is the second album from Demimonde, and they augement their lineup with samplers and processors

to play a completely fucked up form of sci-fi prog-death that is packed with confounding song structures and jarring shifts between atmospheric death/doom

and odd electronica. The music is comparable to an even more over-the-top Arcturus, or maybe a demented space opera performed by members of Mr. Bungle, Pink

Floyd, Dodheimsgard, and Quebecois avant metallers Unexpect - crushing death metal riffing and speedy double bass blasts fuse with cosmic electronic noises

and bits of abstract spaceship ambience and cosmic jazz, classical piano runs emerge out of gritty droneloops and arabic melodies, eerie doom metal with

gothy vocals a la Moonspell and operatic female singing, intricate guitar shredding combines with deformed carnival music, Goblin-esque synthesizers and drum

n' bass breaks. I get the impression that Mutant Star is some kind of concept album with a science fiction/satanic narrative, but the band's use of

the English language in their lyrics is beyond incomprehensible, bordering on Dadaism. Take for instance the lyrics to "Light Escape": "...What have you sang

about? About the wind Notus, haze creating about the spoilt - wind blowing from the South, you know what I mean...how do you feel - exhausted - do you

believe in magic? You have a nice family." I've listened to this album abut seven times so far and I'm no closer to understanding what in the fuck Demimonde

is singing about. As if that shit isn't weird enough, the band photo in the center spread of the album's booklet shows the whole band standing together, but

one of the members has had his head digitally removed and replaced with some sort of bizarre alien head. They also use these really deep, affected male

vocals in spots that recite spoken word parts that seem to further Mutant Star's weird storyline, which makes me feel like I'm listening to a far-

out avant metal opera being performed by aliens masquerading as Czech citizens and infiltrated by dark theatre-of-the-mind actors on acid.

And if that isn't enough, Demimonde has also included a fairly extensive interactive CD-Rom section on the disc that features image galleries, a bunch of

techno tracks, lyrics and album information, and an mp3 section featuring the full version of Demimonde's debut album The Warrior's Poets!