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Rating: It's difficult to write a review on 'Lingua Mortis,' yet I felt compelled to write one when I noticed that no one had yet done so. In fact, I’m convinced that nothing deserves to be known more by anyone who loves good music than this album... but enough with the praises because it could go on endlessly. I apologize in advance if I'm unable to express myself the way I would like to speak about this masterpiece.
As I was saying, it's not easy to describe this work, as we aren't faced with the usual RAGE album and their always effective bone-crushing Teutonic power metal. In fact, we aren't even dealing with a metal album in the strict sense, but with something more. It's enough to insert the CD into the player to realize it: metal songs played by an orchestra.
NOTE WELL: we're not talking about a Symphonic Metal album or an album featuring arrangements with some violin… we are talking about Metal songs played almost entirely by the Prague Symphony Orchestra, to whom Peavy Wagner turned. How can the union of two majestic genres (even if in different ways) not be majestic in itself?
Right from “In A Nameless Time” (from Black In Mind), you realize you're listening to something unique: the metallic bursts of the guitars are replaced by strings and winds, the drums are overshadowed by the timpani, and the guitars are only heard at a few (but great) moments. One might think that the song loses its charge… nothing could be further from the truth, the orchestra gives an even more solemn tone and unheard power to RAGE’s music composed only for the sector’s canonical instruments… the result is a grand sound hardly describable in words. “Alive But Dead” (Black In Mind) demonstrates the genius of Peavy’s arrangements, managing not to lose a bit of the darkness of the original song and making it, while less aggressive, much more effective. But it is with the “Medley” that the tears come, and certainly not of sadness. An emotional piano loop on the notes of “Don’t Fear The Winter” opens this 15-minute track that includes recent and older pieces by the German group, quickly followed by a moving version of “Black In Mind,” simply chilling.
The orchestra takes over and gives us a snippet of “Firestorm” instrumental, before making way for the splendid “Sent By The Devil,” like all the other songs on 'Lingua Mortis,' the orchestra shines a new light on this gem from Black In Mind as well. But when “Lost In The Ice” starts, you call it a miracle, fingers run across the piano and immediately the violins join in unison and form an unparalleled melody, almost floating in the air, but RAGE remembers they are still a metal band and it’s time for Sven Fischer’s solo over a pressing and cadenced melody that closes this “Medley.” In a word: immense.
The last actual song is the touching ballad “All This Time,” similar to the original found on Black In Mind but undoubtedly very successful. The final track is a sort of tribute to the Orchestra, an instrumental version of “Alive But Dead” that closes 'Lingua Mortis.'
I know very well that I probably failed to fully describe or convey this work through the review… but that’s where the essence of Lingua Mortis lies, it's a work of art that simply escapes any form of definition. I only hope that someone might at least be intrigued and want to experience the emotions this album conveys with every listen, I assure you it's worth it. This way, perhaps, you might rediscover metal or classical music, because in fact that's what it's about, Metal and Classical Music perfectly fused that reinforce each other. And forgive me if it's little.
Tracklist and Lyrics
03 Medley (15:33)
Don't Fear The Winter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Autumn - the time of darkness and decay
Life's running shorter day by day
Winter -has gripped the land in cold caress
He's all alone and deeply depressed, she's dead
Don't you fear the winter, I will keep you safe
And warm
Don't you fear the winter, nothing's gonna
Do you harm
Midnight - and on the graveyard a storm is RAGEing
The clods of earth hide his whole life
Homeless - who's lonely now will be for long
The wind will drift him on and on, like the leaves
Don't you fear the winter, I will keep you safe
And warm
Don't you fear the winter, come with me,
There'll be no harm
A silent might that has moved you
Hear your waters stand still
Striding down to the elder
Soon you'll meet her again
Autumn - who's got the time knows nothing yet
Who cares? But watchful are the Dead
Midnight - It's hard to face and deeply sad
But you're asleep so don't look back, you're dead
Don't you fear the winter, I will keep you safe
And warm
Don't you fear the winter, nothing's gonna
Do you harm
Don't you fear the winter, I will keep you safe
And warm
Don't you fear the winter, come with me,
There'll be no harm
Black In Mind
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've seen it coming, it's got to be.
No illusions at the turning of the century.
All our wishes - forever free -
all destroyed because somehow we lost the masterkey.
Leaving my dreams far behind,
got no ambitions in time if only I'm so
Black in mind, When there's no point in making it.
Black in mind. When there's no hope for love, I'm so
Black in mind. When these madmen are wasting it.
Black in mind. I don't want to be sacrificed for
a territorial war. Leave me alone, I'm so black in mind.
You made me want it, too blind to see
that all it gave me were illusions of reality.
My eyes got used to the things they've seen,
now where's the difference between my life and the TV screen.
Firestorm
~~~~~~~~~
This place, home for all generations, never's been to small
when all life worked hand in hand
the centuries passed one by one
without changing the circumstances
that we needed to be there
Like a firestorm
when all home dies and fear is born
to feed the firestorm
Like a firestorm
that burns the ground you're standing on
we'll feed the firestorm
And then - slowly but surely -
explorers and inventors stepped into
the system they didn't understand
that's when the trouble began
and when the time marched on
they had learned how to destroy
Like a firestorm...
The end of the story is: nothing's impossible
and that's what we're afraid of
apocalyptic signs, our homestead stands in flames
guess we missed the lesson modesty
Like a firestorm...
Sent By The Devil
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spirits coming from the mind,
waking up my deepest horrors,
capture my thoughts, make me blind.
Weird, 'cause I don't want to see
the abyss of my possibilities.
Scared I can't look away.
It has come to my side.
Sister demon - my bride.
I want you, I need you
and I have set you free.
You're always right behind me,
I know the devil's sent you to me.
You want me, you need me,
now that I've set you free.
Look always right behind you,
You know the devil's sent me to you.
What has started as a longing
almost is possession now,
it drives me again and again.
Put a light into your window,
maybe I can find a hold.
I run against myself 'till I find the end.
Sent by the devil
Lost In The Ice
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An antarctic land, deadly unknown
where we explored a mountain range
and on the highest ridge we found remains of buildings
like no man's eye had ever seen
A city forgotten on top of the world
and entry we found in a stonewall
and walked a stairway built aeons ago
to streets and houses covered under ice and snow
Walls that had mosaics with pictures and reliefs
faces that no eyes'd ever seen, l like half flesh and half of steel
they had headphones stuck to their skulls
no muscles, just wires, a technical pulse
The creatures look weird, scary and strange
the art on the walls, it told us their tale
They came from a planet lightyears away from here
to bring knowledge, truth and culture to this undeveloped place
the fathers out of space
Before life crept out of water mother earth was occupied
but the climate changed the borders, now they are lost in the ice
Now they are lost in the ice, lost in the ice
They build up life from desert and stones
Our planet grew up helped by elder ones
Then the ice came and they had to move away
to the middle earth and then the stories on the pictures ended
when they had left the land
Before life crept out of water mother earth was occupied
but the climate changed the borders, now they are lost in the ice
Now they are lost in the ice, lost in the ice
All their buildings, streets and stonewalls sleep in this forgotten place
but what happened to the creatures when they were lost in the ice
Now they are lost in the ice, lost in the ice
What a strange and awful vision for us all
it made us shiver to the bone
what if now some of these creatures still survived
in the caves under the Pole?
Before life crept out of water...
And then we walked beneath the city, hours and hours
when suddenly we heard a strange and distant sound
all I remember is my flight from this dark place
a flight from the alien creature's face, my ancestor from space
Lost in the ice
Whoever was these old remains, his blood is flowing in my veins
is flowing in my veins
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