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Rating: Diamanda Galàs is without a doubt one of the most original musicians and composers of our time, who has established herself with a strong personality and a complex message, often misunderstood due to attitudes and statements not shared by the media (in particular).
She is not very popular in the USA, where many minorities, including the Greek one—which she belongs to—are completely shut out of the system. After working exclusively in the avant-garde scene between the late '70s and '80s, between 1991 and 1994 with two albums like Plague Mass and The Sporting Life (written and performed with John Paul Jones), she was taken into consideration not only by the specialized press but also by an increasingly larger audience. In 1988, she reached a significant turning point by crafting, for the first time, songs much more similar to the canonical song form.
The attempt, sometimes forced, to fit her overwhelming nature into 4-5 minute tracks succeeds for the most part.
The single Double Barrel Prayer—her first single in her entire career—is the most striking demonstration of this new guise. At the conceptual level, it might seem like an attempt at commercializing the work, but the artist's quest still eludes such judgments.
In this LP, for the first time, besides having a properly "rock" band as support, she reinterprets two songs from the Afro-American tradition. Swing Low Sweet Chariot is the manifesto of the new Diamanda Galàs: an unparalleled soprano. An interpretation laden with tension and anguish for that song black slaves sang returning exhausted from the cotton fields.
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home
Let My People Go, to which she brings some more personal modifications, is the only track accompanied only by the piano, with reminiscences that are sometimes gothic, sometimes more "epic" than usual. Looking at her original tracks, one always notices a versatile approach to vocality, marked by arrangements that are very different from one track to another. The single probably makes one think of some nightclub with goth/flashy cravings, the title track to a circus full of improbable gospel choristers, Malediction instead veers towards unexpectedly funky tones. The only thing to criticize is probably the length: only 8 tracks.
An album that probably the more rock-oriented singer-songwriters of the '90s know very well.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Double-Barrel Prayer (05:05)
The dogs have come today
the dogs have come to stay
It's time to get your gun out
And drive the dogs away
They can smell your blood inside
It's loo late lo go and hide
The dogs are' on their way
Prepare yourself today
Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to men of good will
We praise thee; we bless thee;
we adore thee; we glorify thee
We give thanks to thee for thy great glory
O lord God, Heavenly King,
God theFather Almighty,
O Lord, the only begotten son, Jesus Christ,
O Lord, lamb of God, son of the Father
The dogs know when you're sleeping
They know when you're awake
How fast your heart is heating
So be ready, or too late
They'll drag you by the collar
And they'll take you through the town
Your friends can help no longer
Once your ass is on the ground
Thou who takest away the sins of the world
have mercy upon and receive our prayer
Thou who sittest at the right hand of the Father,
have mercy upon us
For thou art holy,
thou only art the Lord, thou only Jesus Christ, art most high,
with the holy ghost in the glory of God the Father.
The dogs have come today
The dogs have come to stay
The dogs want you to pay
And this is what I say:
The trick to saying prayers
When the Devil's in the way
Is to help God pull the trigger
On the dogs this Judgment Day
AMEN.
06 Let My People Go (03:21)
The devil has designed my death
And is waiting to be sure
Plenty of his black sheep died
Before he finds a cure
Oh Lord Jesus
Do you think I served my time?
The eight legs of the devil now
Are crawling up my spine
The firm hand
Of the devil now
Is rocking me to sleep
I force my blind eyes open Lord
But I'm sinking in the day (?)
Oh Lord Jesus
Do you think I served my time?
The eight legs of the devil now
Are crawling up my spine
I go to sleep each evening now
Dreaming of the grave
I see the friends I used to know
Crawling up my leg
Oh Lord Jesus
Do you think I served my time?
The eight legs of the devil now
Are crawling up my spine
Oh Lord Jesus
Do you think I served my time?
The eight legs of the devil now
Are crawling up my spine
Oh Lord Jesus
Here's the news from the new from the fires below
The eight legs of the devil will not
Let my people go
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