The Lacklustre Mirror is a neoclassic/rock act, based in Moscow, Russia. The band had entitled its own music as ‘dark art rock/metal’, however this only vaguely describes the ecclectic sound of the Lacklustre Mirror, which combine symphonic and neoclassical atmosphere with rock and heavy metal pressure, avoiding, however, excessive bombast… well, probably avoiding…

…Back in 1999 there was a peculiar art exhibition in a Moscow Museum of Literature: drawings and paintings by late poet and translator Arkadiy Shteinberg, best known in Russia for his translation of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ were exhibited. Among others, there was an extremely powerful drawing, people couldn’t help stumbling upon for a long time, a drawing named ‘Skazaniye o Zatonuvshem Grade Kitezhe’ (A Legend of Drowned Town of Kitezh). This picture has finally surfaced on the Web, although the reproduction has a very very poor quality:

Arkadiy Shteinberg, The Legend of Drowned Town of Kitezh. Click on picture to visit Shteinberg

Actually the entire picture is immersively dark green, as wild fir woods can only be, and the sky isn’t white, but tempestously dark-grey, and so is the water. And you would almost hear the powerful drone coming out of this picture - right in your soul.

As anyone can see, there’s no any town in the picture, and no hints on it, just a lonely figure standing in the boat looking into the depth of water, either trying hard to see the drowned city (a Slavic version of Ynis Wytrin or Avalon in Britain, as one can guess). Or?..

This picture had been drawn just after Shteinberg was released from 11-years long imprisonment (among million others, he was a victim of Stalin’s age of ruthless repressions). And this drawing depicted his that-time condition - a condition of a human being, which has to re-evaluate his life’s disastrous experience (which, according to his own words, he had never been taking as a disaster, but as just a part of his life), and to look into his own soul.

So those still, dark waters, that had taken ancient Town of Kitezh, are actually the lacklustre mirror of the soul - the soul of the sole figure standing in the boat.

That’s when and how the name ‘Lacklustre Mirror’ started to emerge…

The Lacklustre Mirror’s story is both quite lengthy and very short. Basically the band was launched in 1998, acquired its present name in 1999, and had first live show only in 2001, followed by few more. For years it had been plagued with lineup problems, with over dozen people overall coming and walking away. The band cofounder Celestial Air left the band in 2006, so b. remained the only one of the LM’s founders still involved. During 2006-2008, however, new band members arrived (see Cast page), and the band at last started performing live.

The band’s first demo - ‘Dark Water’ emerged in 2000, and it was basically a solo work by b.. Three years later it had been followed by the second demo - ‘The Book of the Shattered Bounds’. Eventually both of these demos became the basis for the band’s debut album which had been released in 2007 by Shadowplay Records, after the label released three compilations (2004 and 2006) featuring works by Lacklustre Mirror. See Scores for details.

Lacklustre Mirror has just finished recording its second full-range album ‘The Forgotten Songs’ which had been released by Shadowplay Records late in January, 2009.

Three months later it became clear that internal disagreements between the band members were beyond any resolution, so the project ceased to exist.