Croatian post-rock band Lunar proves that gently layered, repetitive instrumentals know no boundaries. There is No 1 is an enjoyable record full of subdued, delicate, restrained music. Most of the tracks lack vocals, allowing you to focus better on the stark beauty of the music. In tenor, the album reminds me a bit of Sonic Youth's soundtrack to the film Made in USA. There's something very cinematic about this stuff -- something vast and distant, something visual and evocative.

Multi-lingual song titles abound. "Ursa", "Kozmonautika", "Los dos millónes de dolares" and "Reverberateur numerique" -- how do these titles do for international-ness? However, just as the song titles embrace diversity, the music consistently hammers on the same approach: minimize, economize, reuse. "Ursa" starts with a subtle foundation -- a soft, echo-like guitar figure -- then adds hypnotic layers of ethereal electronics. Crashing drums and rock riffing are conspicuously absent. "-Tirwanto?" is quicker and noisier than its predecessor but still lofty, its healthy tempo never detracting from the airy, bell-like guitar harmonics and the gentle strata of soft noise. "Vat Iz" is the album's most Sonic Youth-like piece; I could easily imagine it as a lost Daydream Nation outtake. On the whole, it's restrained -- an unadorned bassline, mellow-toned, repetitive guitar figures, simple drums, Moore-esque vocals -- but it breaks away for a moment in the middle to do something more energetic.

I'd imagine that lack of resources and political/ethnic issues would make being a post/noise-rock band in Croatia more challenging than in other parts of the world. Lunar, then, certainly deserves credit for a musical success that at least rivals their (presumably) more advantaged counterparts!