Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows
Have You Seen This Ghost?

I have a lot of affection for Debaser, but in one aspect, Debaser has worsened the quality of my life: namely, the fact that I no longer possess the ability to form a calm judgment of the various works that I am about to review, especially those that do not project, in my mind, in a clear and distinguishable manner, the exact number of stars that decree their value.

This is the case, for example, with this "Have You Seen This Ghost?" released at the dawn of 2011 in a super limited edition (later supported by wider distribution and more affordable for everyone's pockets), the latest act (mmmm, I'm not sure about this, I think another one might have come out these days) of the untamed artistic entity Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows. How many stars does this blessed disc actually deserve? Four or three? Good album or just adequate? It’s clear and peaceful that the judgment you give of a work is always subjective, especially for music not easily accessible like the one we're discussing. Yet I don’t feel like the latest rat that crawled into Anna/Varney Cantodea’s crypt: I’ve been following the moves for years, and until a certain point I literally idolized the path. But then something cracked, and today I almost feel like saying: “Anna/Varney Cantodea” has pissed me off!

“Have You Seen this Ghost?” is seventy-four soporific minutes of the usual whimpers and grotesque atmospheres: nothing new, then, but have I grown old or rather has the artist aged?

I investigate, I seek ingenious insights, at times I find them, but overall I am not convinced at all, yet "Have You Seen this Ghost?" is a product not only unique and inimitable but also packaged with the usual professionalism, inspired by good lyrics and an intriguing underlying concept. So what is wrong then? What's wrong is that, even forgiving the artist for excessively macabre poetics, dwelling to exhaustion on gory themes, and the self-referentiality of his art (in “Have You Seen this Ghost?” we find nothing—absolutely nothing—that is foreign to the Sopor Aeternus universe, so much so that by selecting a random minute from the entire piece, you will instantly recognize the artist's unmistakable trademark—and that's not something for many, indeed, almost no one!), what's wrong is, people say, that it is really difficult to reach the end of the work, and when you do reach the end of the listen, there's frankly little desire left to put the record back on to listen to it again.

Too harsh? But no! I adored works like the two chapters of “Dead Lovers' Sarabande”, I was astounded by that terrible brick that was “Songs from the Inverted Womb” (which certainly wasn’t kidding in length and weight), and I even appreciated the electro-goth turn of the revolutionary “Le Chambre D’Echo”. But then, as was said, something broke, and the latest works seem to have taken a turn in my opinion not good, a turn that initially I forgave, dazzled above all by the "splendor" of the aforementioned works, but now, it's to be admitted, there are too many times that Anna/Varney Cantodea serves us the same old spiel. And it isn't enough that “Have You Seen This Ghost?” is a complex work meticulously crafted in every aspect, musical and graphic. The problem remains that Anna/Varney Cantodea seems to have stylistically stopped, clinging to an all-too-predictable pattern, chamber music too full of cloying baroque elements that over time actually become really boring, so much so that not even the bold vocal "flights" of our legendary Austrian transgender manage to awaken us.

“Have You Seen This Ghost?” is the second part of the “ghost trilogy” and follows shortly after the EP “A Strange Thing to Say”, leaving the stylistic coordinates of the latest full-length "Les Fleurs du Mal" practically unchanged, which had consolidated the project’s new course with a slightly “pop” openness, and a greater relaxation at the lyrical level.

The ghost trilogy, while still full of that black and somewhat kitschy humor fundamentally centered on sexual themes (a point of no return for the tormented existential journey of Anna/Varney), blocks at birth any attempt at innovation we might have expected, indeed it operates a containment on those pushes towards the 1980s pop wave seen in the recent past, recovering ground instead on the gothic and horrific front (but without repeating the depth of the abysses explored in mature works). In short, the usual bells, the usual trombones, the usual harpsichord, a sound body that willingly does without electronics, reduced almost to the bone (but not entirely abandoned, since there remains a measured use of synthesizers). No, no step forward in this sense, the Eternal Drowsiness continues to march to the beat of a chamber dark, unique in its kind, but far too prolix and mannered for those already accustomed to feeding on these sounds. And it’s not surprising that the only real jolt I had was with the beginning of the eighth track “Powder”, where Anna/Varney’s decrepit grunt tragically (in a good sense) marries with an unsettling synth and electronic beat carpet. For the rest, we are in the presence of yet another monument of anguish recreated ad hoc in the studio through a rich assortment of acoustic instruments, strings, and winds in the first place, without giving up the dynamism of the percussions which now constitute an indispensable ingredient of the new course of Sopor Aeternus (but it’s not necessarily a good thing in the long run, since, while on one hand, everything gains in catchiness, on the other part, that deadly atmosphere that has always characterized the project is lost): in short, the usual sumptuous stage for the graceless flights of Anna/Varney’s incredible voice, which, from sepulchral lows to high-pitched tones, passing through sudden jolts and an incredible range of voices, weaves his/her usual human tragedy (his/her own).

All very original then; indeed all very unique, because no one can have that voice and no one can narrate those neuroses, and no one can conceive this music and no one can have the perseverance and determination and motivation to package a product like this; but frankly speaking, when discussing a name of the caliber of Sopor Aeternus, it is not acceptable to settle for the simple reiteration of a scheme, albeit now tried and tested to perfection.

Yet "Have You Seen This Ghost?" is not pure immobility, at least from the lyrics we deduce a step forward in the artist's existential journey, landing at a new stage of self-awareness. Since the journey has been blocked from the start due to the inability to accept one's body, one's sexuality, and therefore to have an adequate relationship with the surrounding world, physiologically the artist lands today, with delayed explosion, to fantasies that we could place in the most typically adolescent phase, a phase animated by insecurities, dreams, hopes and—alas—unrequited loves, physical and mental jerks, and almost Anna/Varney makes us tenderly think of talking about masturbation (all perfectly summarized in the paradigmatic opening track “One Day My Prince will Come”). With a touch of fantasy taste and the usual attraction to macabre themes, Anna/Varney thus develops the concept (a love story with a predictable “saddy ending”) as if it were a ghost-novel, whose understanding is facilitated by the refined comic-style drawings that faithfully trace the content of the tracks. Tracks that add in their circle three covers: "Sleep" by Marianne Faithfull (music by Angelo Badalamenti), "Hello" by Lionel Ritchie (yikes) and "Holding Out for a Hero" by Jim Steinman, versions that retain little or nothing of the original pieces, so that they blend peacefully with the other ten pieces, often also very long and substantially devoid of structure (if separated from the inevitable lyrical counterpart). “Have You Seen this Ghost?” thus lives of a strange paradox (not new to the artist but here exacerbated): everything is so extreme and alienating that at the end it generates in the listener a sense of total addiction to agony and sadness that almost makes him/her immune and impassive in the face of the emotional overturning and the energies at play. In practice: the pieces are indistinguishable (if not after several and careful listens) and we do not find true sparks to wake us from the torpor.

In summary: “Have You Seen This Ghost?” has nothing that can truly disappoint the most ardent fans of the project, and to tell the truth, it’s not even a bad album, certainly not inferior, as far as professionalism and commitment are concerned, to the albums that immediately preceded it. So is it a three or four-star album? It’s up to you to decide, depending on how much desire and time you have to delve, this time around, into the disturbing world of Sopor Aeternus.

Certainly not an easy listen. For me, for example, it bores me to Death, but maybe, at other times.... (damned Debaser!)