The Moon And The Nightspirit is the moniker adopted by a Hungarian duo dedicated for over a decade to a folk with melancholic traits that, roughly speaking, could be placed in the wake of the most recent Dead Can Dance, while keeping in the foreground that lightness and catchiness that have never been the main skills of the seminal Australians. Ágnes Tóth and Mihály Szabó delight us with a rather long work that certainly doesn’t bore us, thanks to the characteristics just mentioned; the vocal part is mostly entrusted to the first one, who has a pleasant voice and is appreciable for her resistance to the temptation to overdo it. The texts strictly in Magyar language do not facilitate the fruition but, all things considered, this can not be a problem if it is true that, for example, the same Lisa Gerrard has almost always sung their songs in a language that does not exist. The folk of the Hungarian couple is obviously affected by the musical traditions of their country, then emerge from time to time some more eventful passages referable to the ethnic sounds of Eastern Europe but, undoubtedly, this component is inserted into the context with a grace that makes it an added value. The tracks follow one another showing a constantly high level although the work shows a certain growth in its final part, reaching its peak in the penultimate track where the joint contribution of the two voices rests on a splendid musical theme. Holdrejtek is quite a long record by the standards of the genre but it doesn’t bore, thanks to a certain immediacy given by the constant melodic research carried out by Ágnes and Mihály, which is well integrated with the mystic and ethereal elements that characterize the songs. This is really another excellent record in which the folk material is marinated in the best way, leaving at the end of the listening a pleasant feeling of clear purity.

2014 – Prophecy Productions