Fields of the Nephilim
Elizium

Ok, I review myself.

Even though it's been a long time since I listened to myself. But I listened to myself a lot in the past.

I know the highs and lows, the snow-capped peaks, and the dark seas.

And I have seen B beams glitter in the dark... no maybe this is another movie...

But Carl McCoy is somewhat of a replicant, a navigator of dark galaxies, a kind of wandering cowboy teetering between the caricature of Zorro and a diaphanous Beelzebub with a mysterious heart. But it's not his (supposed) charm that interests me, I've never been drawn to a singer's charm, except for “total” personalities, like Leonard Cohen, Roger Waters, Nick Cave, Faber, or Francesco De Gregori himself.

The Elysian Fields. Elysium. Elizium. The paradise of Greek mythology.

A place, at the edges of the world, perhaps in the sky, where one lives perpetually serene. Where the souls of the Elect dwell, those who procured for themselves on earth, with their merit, with virtuous behavior, the right to eternally enjoy the sapphire breezes, which glide gently over the vast expanses of white anemones, bathed in light. There is no suffer­­ing there, no pain exists.

This is what interests me. Because if there is an Elysium, there is also a Hades, an image of its own god Orcus from which it takes its name, or rather a part of it, Tartarus, the underground abyss of the reprobates, where Titans, Cyclops, and other monsters are imprisoned, and all the damned mortals, cast back forever into the constraints of darkness and plagues.

All this rambling, you might say, where is it heading?

It wants to say why this album has stayed with my soul. An album classifiable as gothic rock, of a group labeled as an imitation of the better known The Cult or Sisters of Mercy, but in my judgment of a much higher level, both in stylistic refinement and in creative flair.

With Carl McCoy's dark and guttural voice and the typical deathly patterns drawn by intersections of basses and riffed guitars, alternating with clear and slowed-down openings where arpeggios and syncopated drum hits stand out, The Fields of the Nephilim bring Elysium into Hades, or vice versa, traverse the latter to find themselves, at times, in the surprise and wonder of the former, slowing heartbeats to then quicken the breaths, suddenly calming frantic races in the quiet throb of an infinite moment. An adrenaline-pumping rhythmic development that gives way to pauses of rarefied suspended ambiance, with the melodic support of keyboards, where Coy's voice softens, becomes less mournful, yet still entirely black, resonant, in a mix of tension and simmering anticipation of rebirth, of whirling resurgences from stagnant meanders, towards a laborious resurfacing in the swamps, of a sometimes reassuring, sometimes unsettling sonic limbo.

This is their dark gothic peculiarity, which develops into long suites like “At The Gates Of Silent Memory (Paradise Regained)”, one of the most successful yet perhaps overlooked tracks, in which the Monsters suddenly encounter the Elect, or perhaps become them, and the black and loose grimace of their screams transforms into a suspended silence, broken by a distant moon, which heralds a dawn.

Perhaps, then another world is possible, where one can dispense with the dichotomy between right and wrong, between pure and damned, because one turns into the other, based on a glance or a voice, and one feeds on the other, Bios and Thanatos reach out to one another, telling us that here is paradise and hell.

The legacy the Fields of The Nephilim leave is this, and this message is also grasped in the choice of the band's name, which refers to the Nephilim, the people described in the Old Testament, born from the crossing between fallen angels, rebels, and the "daughters of men", seduced and taught by them in magic and perjury. The Nephilim were of gigantic stature, had prodigious strength and insatiable appetite, which, after consuming all the earth's resources, led them to also feed on human beings.

Torn apart by his own esoteric madness, the shaman prophet of occultism shows us a place and traces a path, wanting to nourish himself on our soul, it is up to us to be angel-demons, murky ethereal, pure reprobates, in a perpetual metamorphosis in which there is no possibility of escape. Our damnation, our salvation.

You've been tempting me for a lifetime

Take me to the dream

Through the highs and depths of my soul

Here we have free thoughts inside

Give up to give time

A world without end

Where no soul can descend

There will be no summer

As life has been lost

Afraid to wake up

So afraid to accept the dream

Take the dream

Beware

Shapes of angels, night casts

I lie dead but dreaming in my past

And I am here

They want to meet you

They want to play with you

I cannot break free

And I hear them calling

They want to torment you

They've been here again

They want to be with you

Take me away

Take me there

There I will fade

We are just fools of our fate

On this earth, I will wait

From the roots of my soul

I am losing control

Shapes of angels so deep within you

Feel your soul drowning

Free your soul

Drowning, drowning

Drowning in the waters of reality

Tell me what is reality?

Tell me what is reality? Tell me

Tell me thoughts of God

Do dreams fall from God?

We all fall down

Take me, take me