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It's difficult to find a more fitting title and cover for an album like this, and after all, Mr. Marc Almond is someone who truly understands enchantment: after the immensely successful Soft Cell interlude, probably the most substantial duo of the '80s synth-pop scene, he embarked on a solo career that was prolific and filled with countless gems. At a respectable distance from the spotlight, in that "niche" dimension where one is freer to express their flair without limitations, Marc Almond has established himself as a true, complete Artist, perhaps unique in his kind: a remarkable writing ability that translates into visionary, poignant, and sincere poetry of universal breadth beyond appearances, expressed by a wonderful voice, the voice of an entertainer, a brilliant theater performer also capable of touching the most sensitive strings of the listener's heart and mind, in a representation as scenically perfect as it is true and heartfelt.
With "Enchanted" from 1990, Marc Almond musically distances himself from his native England: this is an album of absolutely Mediterranean taste, warm, an ideal backdrop for a clear summer night, perhaps contemplating the starry sky. The atmospheres range from Spanish, Gypsy sounds to Middle Eastern suggestions, the synth component is reduced to the bone, giving free rein to more popular and natural sounds: it is a stylistically very ambitious album, involving countless musicians, including a whole string orchestra, and despite the contrasts between Almond and producer Bob Kraushaar, the final result is a work of art of rare beauty, a balm for the ears and the spirit. In "Enchanted," this artist's poetry is more vivid and intense than ever, "Madame De La Luna", an eclectic, multiform, and spectacular declaration of love for that satellite that has inspired artists and dreamers since the dawn of time, is a clear demonstration of this, as is "Toreador In The Rain", a wonderful Andalusian serenade where lightness and epicity, passion and beauty, splendor and misery, life and death intertwine, all in less than three minutes. The strings of "The Sea Still Sings" are one of the most dramatic highlights of the album, weaving a poignant elegy enriched with female choirs and performed with dark and suffering pathos, an elegy dedicated to the sea and inspired by the ecological disaster of the Exxon Valdez, a suffering also found in the majestic closure of "Orpheus In Red Velvet", a journey of great orchestral spleen into the inferno of an intense passion to the point of paroxysm.
"Deaths Diary" is a sonnet that completely and dramatically overturns the myth of creation in seven stanzas of pain and disenchantment, masked under the suave appearance of a passionate Slavic dance, Gypsy-like, a dissimulation also present in the tango of "A Lover Spurned", as warm and sensual in music as it is ruthless in lyrics, while in the singles "The Desperate Hours" and "Waifs And Strays" a more pronounced synth matrix dominates compared to the rest of "Enchanted," drawing melodies of intense and poignant beauty on which Almond expresses sentimental poetry halfway between sensuality and melancholy, a love veiled by the shadow of death in the Arabesque "Widow Weeds", Middle Eastern sounds that, on the contrary, are tinged with a thousand colors in "Carnival Of Life", a true anthem to life, to pleasure and the passion of the senses, in which Clare Torry's presence in the choirs stands out.
Faced with an album of such magnitude, one can speak without hesitation of a masterpiece, it's difficult to find such great harmony between music and words, refinement and eclecticism expressed with such style and inspiration: in "Enchanted" everything borders on perfection, a work that combines exquisite compositional skills with the ability to excite and make one reflect; all sung by Marc Almond's mesmerizing and captivating voice, it's impossible to deny such a record the highest of marks, an album that reconciles with the sense of Beauty in the most poetic sense of the term.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Toreador in the Rain (02:52)
Sad little boy of the street
Hands of a thief
With the mind of a dreamer
Dodging the puddles with feet
Of a torero in an Arena
Sings an old Andalucian song
Dancing along
Using his dirty red coat as a cape
Rain thundering down
Sounds like the applause from
Hundreds of people
He feels free as the wind
Free as the swifts
Around the cathedral
Kneels to acknowledge his fame
Forgets all his pain
Little Toreador in the Rain
Bathed in a Rainbow of Pink
Purple and Blue outside La Molina
The pavement reflecting the neon
Lights this Torero in his arena
He looks down at his clothes
Imagining those
Worn of sequin, Gold and Brocade
He kneels and kisses the beast
Fearing the least
Knowing death will not find him
But maybe one day he will face
The Horns of the Devil
His childhood behind him
Brave young man from the streets
No more a thief
No longer a dreamer
Stands in front of the Beast
A golden Torero in an Arena
It starts to thunder and rain
Remembering that day
He danced like a fool on the wing of a dream
Sand turning to mud
Soon where his blood will splatter and mingle
Free, Free as an Angel
Up with the swifts
Around the cathedral
Never to be seen again
Dreams all in vain
There lies the Toreador in the rain
Little Toreador in the rain
Little Toreador in the rain
06 A Lover Spurned (05:37)
A lover spurned
A lesson learned
On love you've got
Your fingers burnt
Shed bitter tears
Now love has turned
The sweet revenge
Of a lover spurned
A passing phase
A week of love
But all at once
You had enough
It pales so soon
Waned with the moon
No deep concern
For a lover spurned
She'll destroy you with her little games
See you swallow all the blame
Make you pay in many ways
For the pleasure of watching you squirm
She'll tell her friends to treat you rough
That you just weren't good enough
Make the going really tough
For the pleasure of watching you burn in hell
And every day
More guilt to pay
A lesson learned
From a lover spurned
It was all so cosy for you
You had a wife, two children
And a beautiful house
And me, well you wanted me
When it suited your needs
And now, now I have nothing
Just a handful of faded photographs
Nothing but a cold empty heart
But I'm not easily forgotten
I'll appear when you least expect
To make you pay
You asked for it that way
She'll come to get you with a knife
Write poison letters to your wife
Totally destroy your life
For the pleasure of watching you squirm
She'll make a fool of you at work
Drag your name through the dirt
Make sure that it really hurts
For the pleasure of watching you burn in hell
Repeat first verse
The sweet revenge
Of a lover spurned
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