Album Review: Dead Can Dance.

DEAD CAN DANCE

ANASTASIS

2012, [PIAS] Records

This review was originally published on ToneDeaf.com.

It’s been 16 years since Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, better known to their legions of fans as Dead Can Dance, released their last album,1996’s Spiritchaser.

After spending their post-DCD days focusing on solo albums, raising families and scoring films (Gerrard famously for Ridley Scott’s Gladiator), the gothic, exotic trance duo have returned to fine form with Anastasis, their ninth and arguably best studio album to date.

Glorious and poetically grand, Anastasis churns with an intensity woven throughout its eight tracks, with stories of rebirth, isolation, stoicism and identity. Dead Can Dance have always been a thinking person’s band, and this album is a virtual feast for the ears and the mind.

Opener “Children Of The Sun” is a psychedelic and cinematic paean to reincarnation, punched up by jazzy drums, sweeping strings and brassy horns.

“Agape” pays homage to Middle Eastern themes as Perry and Gerrard unhurriedly lure the listener through the darkened passageways and market stalls of a mysterious Persian city. Gerrard’s keening voice is like the vocal equivalent of “The Dance Of The Seven Veils” as every pinnacle and valley of her singing shine with unbridled strength.

“Opium”, the album’s darkest star, features Perry’s deep baritone accompanied by majestic synthesizers, dulcimers and tom-tom drums; “Return Of The She-King” begins life as an Irish sea shanty, but soon metamorphoses into a lush and epic theme of heroes and legends – reminding one, perhaps, of Basil Poledouris’s Orgy theme from Conan: The Barbarian.

“You taught me patience was a virtue,” Perry intones solemnly on Anastasis’s closer, the appropriately titled “All In Good Time”: “So I took my time/let Nature take her course/all was revealed/all in good time.”

Truer words could not be sung. Anastasis is a damn revelation, and well worth the lengthy wait!

Here, for your general amazement, is the absolutely fabulous track, "Return Of The She-King". Enjoy!

The Cure At Sydney Opera House.

Just a friendly reminder to my readers in beautiful Sydney, NSW – The Cure will be performing live their first three albums (Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds, and Faith) on the evenings of 31 May and 1 June, 2011 at the legendary Sydney Opera House. The shows will be 180 minutes long (with two intervals), and will feature a revolving lineup of musicians present and past who have indelibly moulded the spirit of The Cure. 

three imaginary boys

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robert smith - voice + guitar

simon gallup - bass

jason cooper - drums

seventeen seconds

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robert smith - voice + guitar

simon gallup - bass

jason cooper - drums

roger o'donnell - keyboards

faith

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robert smith - voice + guitar

simon gallup - bass

jason cooper - drums

roger o'donnell - keyboards + percussion

laurence tolhurst - keyboards + percussion

This is going to be a show to remember – so if you're in Sydney (or plan on being in), you really can't do worse than go. We here at SDU HQ insist! Here's Robert Smith & company performing "The Drowning Man" off of 1981's Faith in 2005. Absolutely brilliant.

The Dead Will Dance Again.

On the 12th of May this year, one Mr Brendan Perry wrote on his forum wall:

"Hi all,

I have been talking with Lisa Gerrard this past week with regard to recording a new DCD album this coming winter. We hope to complete the album by the summer of 2012 and then embark on an extensive two month world tour in late 2012. I will be posting updates from time to time with regard to our progress ... and remember ... you heard it here first and yes it is official!

Brendan."

All I can say is: WOW. This is great news. The last time Dead Can Dance had performed onstage was in 2005; me and a few of my mates were lucky enough to have seen them at the wondrous Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California. I mean, these are the folks who unleashed Spleen & Ideal on the world, had enchanted an untold number of people with the stoic mysteriousness of The Serpent's Egg and its enigmatic "In The Kingdom of the Blind, the One-Eyed Are Kings," had brought back from the grave the musical stylings and instrumentation of civilizations that had been long vanished from the popular culture (thus, of course, their name), and had mystified with their vocal prowess – Perry's deep and assured resonating timbre, alongside the lovely Gerrard's spookily breathy falsetto – and the deep imaginings of fables, incantations, rituals, and heretofore forgotten myths that the music aided in awakening. And let's not forget their mastery of the almighty hammered dulcimer. No, let's not forget that. 


So let us rejoice that after nearly seven years (thirteen years, if you count the last song they actually recorded, "The Lotus Eaters," which appeared on their best-of compilation, Wake, in 2003), DCD is once again going (fingers crossed) to grace us with the mysticism and wonder of their musical trappings. Excited!


Here, from 1993's most excellent Into The Labyrinth, is the remarkable and hypnotic "The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove." Goddamn, what a great song this is.





And here's "Rakim," from Toward The Within, their 1994 live-recording of their 1993 sold-out world tour. Listen to that hammered dulcimer playing!

Gothic Masterpieces: Clan of Xymox.

Ah, Clan of Xymox. I've been listening to a lot of them today - it's rainier than fuck here in Melbourne at the moment, and damned if I'm going to head out into it ... unless I absolutely have to. Clan of Xymox's music is, for want of a better word, absolutely perfect for the occasional cold and rainy day - so this rainy-ass Derby Day seems to be a perfect opportunity to reflect on their 1985 self-titled debut Clan of Xymox!


Based out of Amsterdam and signed to the prestigious London label 4AD (home to such stalwarts as Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, and The Pixies), Clan of Xymox made an immediate impression on the electronic scene with their sweepingly hypnotic melodies that were firmly moored with a sophisticated sheen of guitars. What is it exactly that defines this record? Maybe it is the soaring je ne sais quoi of "No Words," with its delicate acoustic instrumentation hovering lovingly over Ronny Mooring's (who writes and records all of the songs himself) despondent lyrics: "No words to explain, no words in my mouth / No words in my mind / But the gesture said it all / And the words refined it all"? Perhaps it boils down to the grandiosity and pulsing power of the largely instrumental (and a guaranteed floor-filler at finer dance clubs) "Stranger"? Or is it the strange and glossy nonsense of the galloping bonus track "Muscovite Mosquito," overlaid with a distinctly brooding bass? Who knows? Hell, what is a Muscovite Mosquito, anyway? I don't know -- but it fucking rocks. Luckily, Clan of Xymox is still with us after all these years, and their new album Hidden Faces will be released on the 9th of November. Can't wait -- I'll be sure to review it and let you all know what I think!


But for now I think I'm going to continue to sit at my desk with my bottle of Cooper's Green and listen to some more COX. Let me let you in on what it is I'm listening to on this rainy, rainy day.

clan of xymox

"stranger"

clan of xymox

clan of xymox

"a day"

clan of xymox

clan of xymox

"muscovite mosquito"

clan of xymox