Autumn Tears
Love Poems for Dying Children - Act I

Within these verses lies the spirit of "Love Poems for Dying Children - Act I", the refined debut of Autumn Tears.

Released in 1996 in a limited edition, the album quickly went out of print, and this would be its fate for more than a year until Dark Symphonies had the good heart to reissue it and return it to us in a new guise: this providential "Reprise MCMXCVIII", which shines with a new and elegant packaging and a production far superior to the original.

Permeated by decadent, extremely tense, and dramatic atmospheres, yet illuminated by an extraordinary melodic talent, "Love Poems..." is the first sorrowful movement of a painful trilogy that would continue with the good, but in my opinion, lesser "Act II - The Garden of Crystalline Dreams" (1997) and "Act III - Winter and the Broken Angel" (2000).

Together with the Swedish Arcana, the American Autumn Tears are in my opinion to be counted among the most worthy heirs of the seminal Dead Can Dance. Completely devoid of ethnic influences, picturesque detours, and baroque arrangements, the music of Ted (keyboards and vocals) and Erika (vocals) narrows the expressive range of what we could define as a timeless musical torment and focuses, wedges itself, into that instant - an infinitesimal yet infinite fraction of time - in which the flame of Life, dancing, wavers one last time and extinguishes forever from the feverish eye of the dying.

The cold of the marble lips of the Angel of Death that grazes our forehead with a final fatal kiss; the gentle wind that makes us levitate and lovingly carries us, suspended, into the arms of Death: this is the music of Autumn Tears, a sublime concentrate of elegance and decadence, petals of dead roses, immortal in their beauty, whose scent Shakespeare so loved to describe: of their sweet deaths are sweet odors made.

The angelic voice of Erika, mournful ethereal impotent witness of the inevitable Destiny of us all, and Ted's enveloping counterchants intertwine with the supple harmonies of organ and piano, vaguely paying tribute to the genius of the immortal Johann Sebastian Bach. A sweet funeral march that has nothing threatening, nothing heartbreaking, but sounds in truth like a liberation, a placid transit to an "Other" place: the subdued, painful, dignified proceeding along a dense forest path, barefoot, where the moist earth gives way, step by step, to timeless icy floors, in a dark corridor, through vaults of perennial bones measuring the infinite space between Death and what we leave behind. What was and will never be again.

The whistle of the wind at night, among the exhausted fronds of shrubs bent in poses of helpless submission to Life, leads us to "They Watch with Closed Eyes": a single organ chord, immobile, as if played by the lifeless and rigid hand of a corpse - but with still warm blood. The voice of an angel swirls gracefully, tasting of incense, the syllables pronounced like the tears of a mother soothing the pains of her children with her embrace: "The dance of Life and Death".

The four sections that make up the beautiful suite "Ode to my Forthcoming Winter", portraying the passage of the seasons, impress for their ability to describe, to induce visions, to communicate the Inevitability of Everything. Particularly the act dedicated to spring: how can one, I wonder, paint the joyful and vital spring impulse with the colors of sadness and pain? Autumn Tears manage it, possessing a palette rich in colors, Autumn Tears, rich yet of subdued colors. And tears fill my eyes as an organ fugue supports the restless flight of swallows, whose long shadows darken the fields swaying in the wind, where black flowers bloom with petals of vermilion blood, where withered trees desperately extend their arms to the pale sky, where grim bees and butterflies pass wearily from one floral corolla to another, avid for a nectar that certainly won't grant them immortality: it's the resigned chant of the season of Life, which fleetingly blooms, only to wither, fade, and die again, as if chained in a tragic spell.

And just as summer is the restless sleep of Life, suspended, waiting to be awakened (like in a dream from reality) by the authenticity of Death, autumn finally presses on: it is the sorrowful dance of the sleeping leaves that rain silently from the sky, the invisible ballet of trees whispering, terrified, the dreams of a winter yet to come, but whose breath is scented. Erika's voice falls like the leaves, Ted’s organ weaves melancholy melodies as only autumn winds can.

And then winter: the frost, the immobile stasis of Death, the crystalline chimes of the piano that patter like pure snow on the opaque surface of our window, while our childish eyes watch helplessly the slow burial of the World disappearing, tear after tear, under the pale, funeral, cadaverous mantle of Death. The gentle breeze, the raging storm, the velvet shadows of the Night, the impetuous torrents that flow into the tears of those who have lost everything.

"The Eloquent Sleep" is a majestic, epic, tragic gallop of strings. Then two voices merging in the androgynous, sensual, immortal song of Eternal Rest. A piano that dances hopelessly on a slow procession of notes, that plunges into the sleeping world, leading us through its silent dreams. "And Then the Wispering...": organ phrasings, no longer swirling and thrilling metaphysical whirlwinds, but desolate ruins that adorn the void surrounding us. In unison, lovers weave their song of despair, of lost love: a modest, gentle, noble love. An elephantine crescendo of piano, like desperate nails scratching, cracking, shattering against the wall in the attempt to avert the inevitable fall. The tearing pain of memories, of what was and will not return, that pain that can only be soothed by the tender kisses of Death, with the soft caresses of Sleep, like balm on bleeding wounds. "One Tender Kiss (The Lost Seasons)": a thunderous, solemn sentence like the silent streams of blood that flow in the dry furrows of a heart without Life. The Light at the end of the darkness, the illusory Light at the end of the darkness.

In "Carfax Abbey" are welcomed the acoustic guitar of Joe and the voice of Devon from fellow countrymen December Wolves, dedicated, it seems, to a raging yet anonymous black metal. The height of desolation, the death of Love and Pain: the final rite is consumed in a lost and dilapidated abbey forgotten like a ruin in the depths of the forest, to the sound of the wind and the rustles of the night, among grasses wet with tears, ivy, and bluish mosses, innocent witnesses of centuries marching towards the dust of nothingness. And when the coils of Death seem to have finally abducted you, there comes the demonic howl, unexpected, terrible in its perfidy, a jolt in the silence, the heart racing madly: the End is truly coming. Though awaited, though accepted: so tremendously arduous to face.

The 1998 edition closes with "The Intermission": opened by the downpour of rain, the track proves to be anything but a mere filler episode. Perfectly set within the broader flow of the concept (a fantastic story, taken from a novella by Erika herself), the track harmonizes seamlessly with the album's twilight atmospheres, also making use of the valuable contribution of the new vocalist Jennifer, who will join the ensemble from the trilogy's third act. Whimsical in her soprano trills, her voice happily aligns with Erika's ethereal and expressive singing (who will leave the band for a short period - returning in 1999 without missing any discographic appointments - to fully dedicate herself to her writing career).

"The Intermission" is actually the connecting link, the door opening to the second act, the place where illusions clash, the disenchanted and the colorful mirage of the Gardens of Crystalline Dreams. Jim West's (the band’s producer) tramping percussion proudly press on the last fatal verses of revenge, of impetus, of unyielding resignation, of reclaiming one's own existence, one's own dignity, one's own reason for being in Death.

Regardless of God, regardless of what was always believed to exist beyond the abyss, regardless of the pitiful illusions we have crafted while alive.

The inability, the impossibility of accepting one's own End.

The bitterness that tints the Saddest Hour.

The ordeal has just begun: the dying children are about to reunite with their mother...