Dead Can Dance • The Serpent's Egg (4AD, 1988)

What to do, what to do...a man with free time is a dangerous thing...all sorts of odd notions can be acted upon...using this (regretfully) open time, I found my self at http://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/

Fascinating read,that website. It amazes me how stupid humanities mind can be...the evidence is there...but then again, if the United States is unlucky, we'll pretty soon have our first woman President convincing us that the earth is only six thousand years old...

So with a mind full of mysteries, my tastes this afternoon brought me to the Dead Can Dance's masterpiece; The Serpent's Egg. In the history of Goth Rock, nothing sounded like this. Where other bands attempted to emulate the sound of non specific eon old rituals using cheesy synths and drum machines (I don't recall hearing Roland 800's during the wild hunt), the DCD perfectly invoke the mood. Perhaps it is by this point they were using strings and brass, and more importantly, the compositional talent to not be a 101 String Orchestra version of Joy Division. Where most 4AD and alike bands thought that playing in a minor key was all you needed to sound heavy, the DCD had scope to draw on Popol Vuh and Ennio Morricone.
The air of catharsis hangs heavily on the album. You are always somewhere between dawn and dusk. Either the funeral has begun, or the corpse has come home to comfort the aggrieved. This state is the most exquisite of horrors. Thinking back to the Mars Anomalies site it is just a mater of time before people get the idea that something is happening up there, that there is life on Mars. What will happen when everyone figures this out? Will there be planet wide panic since God has lied and there were others beside us, or resolution. The pressure is off since we're not that special after all...

Please click on the review title for selected track: Severance