The Illuminator: Art, Conspiracy and Madness - Podcast Rankings and reviews

I had never heard of Mark Lombardi, but I was intrigued by the description of this podcast and love Brazen’s other podcasts. This is a really interesting story of a man with a tragic end who was both an artist and unofficial private investigator. The narration and sound design are excellent, and I felt totally absorbed by the story. Looking forward to listening to the whole series!

If you have or are around those with hearing aids, cochlear implants, neurodivergence and overall sensitive hearing: the first couple of episodes have high pitched ringing and sounds in them. I understand why they used it in the second episode, but I had to stop listening because it became too much. Other than that, the narrator is fantastic and the subject is interesting.

Interesting story, but this podcast lost significant potential quality in two ways: 1) The sound choices across the episodes include these terrible high-pitched ringing sounds meant to convey suspense that actually do nothing except distract and annoy. Ugh. Makes it unenjoyable. And, 2) the narration adopts a similarly unnecessary conspiratorial tone to be dramatic. Totally unnecessary. Tell us a story, sure, but don’t overdo everything!