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Hailing from a vast and fascinating land like Norway, Bel Canto debuted in 1988 with this wonderful album, worthy of standing alongside the most successful works of Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins. You can already tell that their music evokes ancestral visions, supernatural dreams of distant worlds, embroidered by synthesizers and acoustic instruments, magically in symbiosis with each other. The atmosphere is of great charm, enhanced by the voice of Anneli Marian Drecker, clear and crystalline like spring water. Her ethereal warbles bring to mind the ethnic visions of Enya and the litanies of Dolores O'Riordan, perfectly integrated with the elegant and sophisticated arrangements.
The sound is very engaging, polished yet never overly complex. The idea the group aims to convey is that of purity, clarity, and they succeed splendidly, thanks to folk-electronic inlays of rare expressiveness.
The two singles that open the album, "Blank Sheets" and "Dreaming Girl", immediately showcase their best repertoire, amidst synthetic vibrations, syncopated rhythms, and accordions of yesteryear, echoes of remote civilizations.
The title track bears the stigmata of gloomy visions, with minor guitar chords and thundering melodic counterpoints, creating a solemn madrigal as compelling as few episodes of the genre.
There are also more relaxed moments, like the dense ambient nebula marked by hypnotic chimes of the long "Upland" or the funeral psalm of the somber "Baltic-Ice Braker".
Evocative, folkloric, at times dreamlike and unsettling, calm sky and threatening cloud, "White-Out Conditions" is all of this, as well as an album to own.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Blank Sheets (04:13)
When we're discovering lies
Our pride will be in vain
Now, recirculate your thoughts
Make them new again
Well, do you know where to start
And do you see the end
You're swallowing books
This is just like the last
And you're wasting your time
In searching for your past
Well, do you know where to start
And do you see the end
And when we return
We are all ashamed
Because the promises of life
We'll never forget
And all that you say
Discloses what we are
We know our sheets will always
Maintain blank
When do you hide in your dreams
Do you look behind
Play around with the truth
Constructed in your mind
Well, do you know where to start
And do you see the end
And when we return
We are all ashamed
Because the promises of life
We'll never forget
And all that you say
Discloses what we are
We know our sheets will always
Maintain blank
03 Without You (04:02)
You showed me heaven and hell
You said you loved me
Then you said you could do well
Without me
O' I've got that, I've got that pain
Something inside me
A kind of pain
In some time maybe I'll wonder how it was
I can't imagine I'll never wonder how it was
I just remember too well
You showed me heaven and hell
You said you loved me
Then you said you could do well
Without me
04 Capio (02:20)
Capio
Sera' la candidez
Sera' la nina
La historia pasa
Well. I'll love my life
Until the very hour
When I'll be broken
Into the cold
Sera' la candidez, la historia pasa
And another fall
Y en el jardin, yeah
It will be told
Someone who'll end it all
Someone who'll fall
Someone who'll end it all
Somebody's fault
Y en jardin, yeah
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Other reviews
By Danny The Kid
"White-Out Conditions is disorienting, elusive, almost mocking."
"Anneli Drecker is majestic, hieratic, spiritual; her voice seems to echo from a dreamlike dimension."
