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Solemn and mystical ceremonial, "Spleen and Ideal" presents itself as the ideal boundary between popular music and medieval religious chant. The Anglo-Australian duo composed of Brendan Perry and the gentle Lisa Gerrard prides themselves this time on classical instruments including percussion, winds, and strings; this will be fundamental in the album's timbre, which, very much like a somber mass, plunges the listener into emotional abysses and crises of faith. The relentless timpani beats in "De Profundis", accompanied by a liturgical organ, elevate Gerrard's exotic chant here, aided by desperate choirs in the background. The sacred aura will never leave this work, evoking scents of incense, and whose only brightness is the humble candle flaming in a dark cathedral. "Ascension" represents an act of humility, where only some choirs paired with the organ represent a contact with the reality of prayer. The malevolent onset of "Circumradiant Dawn" insinuates evil into the work, and Lisa Gerrard's singing here is extraordinarily both redeeming and tempting in its emanations. The arrangements are sublime, an unsurpassable peak in the genre (even the Cocteau Twins with the masterpiece "Head Over Heels" will not reach such depths). Brendan Perry, so far more in the shadows, paints a rhythmic and fatalistic "Cardinal Sin", perhaps the most earthly track of the entire set, yet fantastically touching with trumpets and bass in the foreground, and featuring an extraordinary verse:
"Fools are often loathe to testify
It's an illusion of life
The whole cause of our demise
It's an illusion of life"
Here begins the most incredible part of the work; first of all, the absolute masterpiece "Mesmerism". Gerrard sings one of the most intense arias of her career, a witchcraft-like alluring, hypnotic, supernatural spell, over a backdrop of tribal percussion and strings building an unbearable and wonderful emotional tension. Arabic imagery and black magic merge into an onyx of shining darkness. And after sin, comes redemption, the celestial, the ethereal: "Enigma of the Absolute" sees Perry once again in the role of savior, one who tears a hole in the darkness. His vocal opening, powerful and divine, weaves a choir for angels with a cello that opens with a guitar arpeggio and culminates in words of biblical scent:
"Across the sea lies the fountain of renewal
Where you will see the whole cause of your lonliness
Can be measured in dreams that transcend all these lies
And I wish and I pray that there may come a day
For a saviour's arms?"
With "Advent" however, one falls back into a claustrophobic nightmare of tight beats and gloomy organ phrases. It is Brendan Perry himself who betrays the listener with a tone that is open, yet terribly resigned ("In the hour of darkness, Our worlds collide, Assailed by madness, That has plagued our lives"), soon joined by Lisa Gerrard's otherworldly choirs. It is the prelude to the hopeless "Avatar" where Lisa once again takes command in the most touching aria of the album, with an unusually desperate attitude. The laments try not to sink into a sea of reverberations, the voice trembles with pain and mystical hallucination in a crescendo that inexorably fades, leaving the listener in a lake of dead tears in the throat. The sad epitaph of "Indoctrination" now lives on in regret and includes the most significant lyric of the work, closing this journey into the darkest recesses of faith with a sort of sermon:
"How can you be satisfied with things the way they are
When all that surrounds us now and so much more
Remains inside the keeper's dark embrace?
The insatiable thirst for power has made
Idols out of mortals, gods into clay
Soldiers into heros, children into slaves
All damned
Desires
Their hopes betrayed?"
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
04 The Cardinal Sin (05:29)
Sail to the stars on your shining desires
Reasons there are none
Try the whiskey made of grain
When all is said and done
It all amounts to just the same
There in your starry eyes lie hopes that have
been betrayed
The cause of your desire
Can also lead to your demise
When all is said and done
It will be you who pays the price
As countless fools are often loathe to testify
Its an illusion of life
The whole cause of our demise
Sail to the stars on your shining desires
Lucretia waits in vain
For the child of her dreams
Within her aching womb
There burns a funeral pyre
There in your starry eyes lie hopes that have
been betrayed
The prize that you claim
Can never be yours to take
Like castles in Spain
Hope is all that will remain
Abstain from the fools paradise
It's an illusion of life
The whole cause of our desires
Fools are often loathe to testify
It's an illusion of life
The whole cause of our demise
Contemplate the world
And its traitors to the soul
The forces of derision
And its legions manifold
Usurpers of the crown
All pretenders to the throne
Your world has lived in chains
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
Fools are often loathe to testify
It's an illusion of life
The whole cause of our demise
It's an illusion of life
It's an illusion of life
It's an illusion of life
It's an illusion of life
05 Mesmerism (03:53)
Brave your heart
Renounce your fears
Locked away inside
All these years
Remain in light
Renounce your fears
For you have been
Mesmerized
Break this spell of silence
06 Enigma of the Absolute (04:13)
Saloman hung down her head, laid bare her heart
For the world to see; she craved for intimacy
Through darkened doors her aspect veiled with indecision
Gazed out to see; she craved lucidity
Cast adrift from past relationships in her life
Hoisted up the ideal, this was her saving grace
Seas of rage that once assailed her concern for the truth
Had passed her by and left her high and dry
In her savior's arms
In her savior's arms
In her savior's arms
In her savior's arms
Across the sea lies the fountain of renewal
Where you will see the whole cause of your loneliness
Can be measured in dreams that transcend all these lies
And I wish, and I pray that there may come a day
For a savior's arms
For a savior's arms
For a savior's arms
For a savior's arms
07 Advent (05:19)
In the hour of darkness
Our worlds collide
Assailed by madness
That has plagued our lives
At the point of departure
On the eve of despair
Your recourse to reason
Seems to make no sense at all
Refrain
The light of hope
Shines in your eyes
Dementia has gone
Purged from inside
Throughout our wand'rings
In a land of lies
We fell from God's grace
Into a sea of storms
In the self-relevation
Celebration of love
These both are virtues
We seem to have left behind
Refrain
Refrain
Lay bare your heart
Induce the will of love
To restore what little faith
That you may have lost
As morning brings re-birth
A new day will dawn
To ease our troubled minds
Turn away on your side
And dream of days to come...
09 Indoctrination (A Design for Living) (04:13)
In times of great vexation
When one must choose between what's right and wrong
Freedom, so they say,
Amounts to the choices you have made
Through all the arbitrary rationale concerning liberty
Freedom, I must say,
Exists within unconditioned minds
Reason has come of age
How can you be satisfied with things the way they are
When all that surrounds us now and so much more
Remains inside the keeper's dark embrace?
The insatiable thirst for power has made
Idols out of mortals, gods into clay
Soldiers into heroes, children into slaves
All damned
Desires
Their hopes betrayed
Who will suffer the laws
That State can decide your child's education
Unless you pay the price?
Who will suffer their laws?
Who will suffer their minds?
Who will suffer their words?
Who will suffer their designs?
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