The civilised, cerebral strains of the Lingua Mortis Orchestra will come as a mindfuck for those who associate Peter ‘Peavy’ Wagner solely as the bass player/ vocalist of Rage.
An alter ego of the long-running German speed/power metal merchants, LSO also feature two further members of Rage (Victor Smolski and André Hilgers) plus 100 classical musicians plucked from orchestras from Spain and Belarus, and the opera singers Jeannette Marchewka and Dana Harnge, whose voices are complemented by males from various hard rock bands.
Although symphonic metal projects are fast becoming 10-a-penny these days, Lingua Mortis Orchestra are a class above, their fusion of these contrasting styles sounding completely natural. Opening track Cleansed By Fire might sail a little too closely to Carmina Burana, but Smolski, who wrote most of the material, has a genuine feel for classical music and Wagner’s words, based on an apparently true tale of witch-hunting in the town of Gelnhausen in 1599, do him enormous credit.
