Search - Dead Can Dance :: Aion (Hybr) (Mlps)

Textbook excellent release, perhaps too textbook.

IRate | 10/10/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"3 1/2



Another quality release as the band coasted through their medieval stride produced an excellent starting point for the curious, offering the many different undervalued styles this singer and guitarist sought out to a polished tee. In this impressive sampler overview of the dark renaissance revivalists, parts seem to outweigh the whole. Individual tracks never feel shoddy or tacked on, but as a whole, Dead Can Dance provide a few too many profound filler tracks that do little to propel the album. As usual, the mark of talent and originality highlight nearly everything, even if that distinct mark was starting to become a little transparent and predictable."

A last gasp before mediocrity

mianfei | 08/26/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"On Spleen and Ideal and the magnificent Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry created music that, though it clearly had echoes in many masterpieces from the 1970s, was completely unlike anything before it and especially unlike most of what was coming out of the underground in the 1980s. Whereas many people seemed to think that the way to make music dark is to make is loud, fast, and angry in a way that is violent and macho whether it intends to be or not, Dead Can Dance showed that the way to make music really dark was to create atmospheres with genuine depths. On the two abums mentioned above they did this by means of beats that were slow but made more intense by the fact, combined with horns and beats like Parliament slowed down to 7 revs per minute.



"Aion" is a departure, but by no means one that would improve the music of Dead Can Dance. Reflecting Brendan Perry's interest in the music of the Early Renaissance, most of the songs here utilise extensive medieval instrumentation, with several being arrangements of medieval tunes. Unfortunately, this focus caused the loss of the passionate, slow, dark orchestration that made songs like "Xavier" so mind-altering. The first four songs of "Aion" at times sound even upbeat. Even when Gerrard's beautiful voice adds mesmerising touches to the opener "The Arrival and the Reunion", the deep emotion is absent. "Saltarello" could be where the classification of DCD as "new age" begins. It almost seems as if without Perry's big voice the music loses a lot of its passion even if the players have not changed much.



Only when we come to "Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book" and "As the Bell Rings the Maypole Spins" does "Aion" really move away from this lighter tone with some classic voices from Perry and the Gerrard. "Fortune", especially, is a stunner with its unique guitar that seemingly comes out of the Middle Ages, whilst to deny Lisa for what she does on "As the Bell Rings the Maypole Spins" is simply impossible even if the production does not perhaps make the vocal power felt as much as it could. "Black Sun", however, which blends their old sound with new rhythms that are even less "rock" than before, is so stunning that whatever the faults of other parts of "Aion", it is still worth owning. Perry's guttural voice and despairing lyrics match the medieval rhythms like nothing else in the world, and lyrics like "all sense of freedom gone" are just perfect.



"The End of Words" and "Wilderness" reall suffer from being too slight, but on closer "Radharc" they do recapture much of the passion of old in a manner that, alas, would soon be completely gone from Dead Can Dance's music. The string-driven beauty of the lesser-known "The Promised Womb" is arguably Lisa's best piece on "Aion" and shows that the band could still shine as brightly as before even in a new style. The strings here really are sparse but DCD get much more out of a few notes than they do from many on "End of Words" or "Song of the Sibyl". As a fan of Messiaen, the birdsong of "The Garden of Zephirus" is familiar but it is effective and has genuine beauty.



All in all, "Aion" has some truly flawless moments but on the other side it did show the direction DCD were to take on their disappointing final three albums where they sounded like generic new age or world music. Overall, however, with "Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book", "As the Bell Rings the Maypole Spins", "Black Sun" and "The Promised Womb" you cannot go wrong. The last good DCD album."