Search - Amber Asylum :: Songs of Sex & Death

A very important and misunderstood album:

gristler | 06/24/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Like other reviewers, I agree that this is the best album by Amber Asylum. The subsequent release by this band was quite disappointing to say the least. The key to this albums success was in it's subtle, understated treatment of it's gothic themes. Nothing is broad here, as with so many other goth-inclined bands, but rather complex and delicate.
"Songs of Sex and Death" about four years old now, and I recall buying it on a whim because Kris Force had played violin with the Swans during their final performances. Usually anything associated with the Swans in any way is a quality product and "Songs of Sex and Death" is no exception. Yes, the lyrics are quite loaded with cliches (vampires, love beyond the grave, etc.), but with an open mind one can look past this as see that these are merely accessible metaphors for a very real sadness conveyed in the music. I am also a fan of the very pure, classical instrumentation. What may sound to some like a synthesizer, is actually and accordion with delay and reverb. Much like Soundtracks for the Blind, by the Swans, the album is an entire soundscape, the songs merely drifting over constantly shifting atmospheres. It is as if the album is the ghost of another recording, faintly heard through a wall, outside of context. At the very beginning there is a pop and crackle of a needle being dropped on a phonograph. This isn't a ridiculous sound effect, but a reminder of the listener's association to the recording, which is manipulated throughout the album and is never once neglected. The final soundscape, going on for about eleven minutes I think, is very haunting. It is like a nocturnal view of a burning city from an airplane, thousands of miles in the sky.
"Songs of Sex and Death" is an album for anyone who appreciates fine, melancholy music, and has perhaps been over looked because of it's inclusion in the genre of gothic and ethereal, a form of music stereotyped as melodramatic and laughably pretentious. I'd like to think that the audience for this album was broader, but it's doubtful. I suppose this will simply be another one of those great recordings that no one ever hears about."

This CD made me cry

08/21/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I had been doubting to buy an Amber Asylum for months. Then when I was in Amsterdam I saw it in the store. I decided to buy it and omigod.. I'm so happy I did... This is such beautiful music... it's so incredibly sad... Honestly it brought tears to my eyes...At first the song Vampire seemed somewhat out of place but then after I listened to it a few times it grew on me and started to fit in quite nicely :-) What you'll notice mostly about the atmosphere of this CD is that it's so incredibly sad... Not surprisingly since the CD is about tragic love experiences. The instruments are very well chosen. A haunting violin and soft keyboard and piano melodies. Completed by Kris Force's soprano voice and soft eerie samples.I'd recommend this CD to people who love emotional and entrancing music but not to people who love to get up and dance. The type of music is much too depressing and sad for it.All In all a wonderful CD... One of the best CDS I have ever heard.-Richard"

Nightmarish lullabyes

daniel | 02/22/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In this new album, lead singer/songwriter Kris Force examines the theme of tragic love. This is an unusual song-cycle, in that it uses sound rather than lyrics to impart the subject matter. Force's high, crystalline soprano transforms the lyrics into piercing, chilly, near indecipherable notes. Her sonic palette this time rests in the fertile ground between classical and dark-ambient music: accordian, cello, Force's own violin and guitar-playing shares the stage with subliminal keyboard sound effects. At the same time, there is something very theatrical about this cd, as if it were a soundtrack for an as-yet un-filmed movie by the Brothers Quay. The music is deceptively calm, but moments of sheer dissonance will erupt suddenly, only to be subsumed into to the current of lulling music. This gorgeous music; kind of New Age music for disturbed people."