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Rating: It is likely that this album appeals only to me and a few others, and it is also possible that I have constructed an entirely intimate and subjective archetype for myself, but if I have to write only about things that are agreeable and accepted by everyone, then I would have to deny the little passion and conscience that I have left. So, even though it's perfectly clear that talking about Theatre of Tragedy, and doing so within the confines of a review that's already been written and digested by those who have paid attention to it, is like navigating a minefield.
Like many historic bands of certain "contaminated" and "contaminating" genres, Theatre of Tragedy eventually met the fate of the mouse that believes it must dare a bit too much against the cat: crushed by their own reputation, heavy and respectable with their first albums, only to blissfully tumble thanks to choices or perhaps artistic errors that definitively marked their stylistic and commercial downfall (in silence).
One cannot live forever on past glory, that's very true, but, with this beautiful work, T.o.T. managed to surpass, albeit slightly, the very good performance of the first (and eponymous) album: all the parts that make up this work are in their place according to a precise, thoughtful, fascinating, and eccentrically sad purpose.
In more than one track, you can still find the best Doom elements of the genre, but intermingled with these, gothic nocturnal and weeping phantoms reign, and then here's the graceful and delicate voice of Liv Kristine that intertwines with a growl that is not extremely fierce but certainly structured to be distressing, from her male counterpart Raymond I. Rohonyi. Here are decadent and claustrophobic dialogues from bleached and forgotten films that intertwine with instruments that draw, with their strength and harmony, smoky and martial atmospheres imbued with the "tragic" spirit, which was the very promoter of the fame and success of T.o.T.
And it is disarming and always painful, albeit pleasant, to listen again to the nine songs on this CD. Tracks that hold many nuances, many sensations each different from the other, like in a kaleidoscope in which to lose oneself and never find oneself again. From the very first "Fair and 'Guiling Copesmate Death" with its slow and measured attack that, oxymoronically, gives way to the sweet and introspective singing of the female counterpart, to then dissolve into the more leaden and tedious male softness, up to resulting in a brilliant interplay of growl and sweetness, like a deadly game: beauty, even if mysterious and with a vague dangerous scent, and ferocity measured and trapped in a universal and objectifying dismay.
In addition, all the songs wander in the elaborate and impure chiaroscuro of atmospheres soaked with sickly dawns, of nocturnal stars illuminated by a light that annihilates them, of cruel and atrocious opiate venoms, but served in the most exquisite golden and opalescent style.
And so, losing oneself in the difficult-to-understand and archaically and ancestrally written lyrics (and it is not an exaggeration; read them to believe), in the guitars that often and willingly become spacious and dreamy to give space to the violins or keyboards, in the more "bohémien" and grotesque meanderings of the countless contexts that this record holds, is a sweet demise that never ceases to occur. Always better, always quietly, but always, in the background, that exhausting charge that makes each composition a small gem: "Bring Forth Ye Shadow", "And When He Falleth", "Black As The Devil Painteth", "On Whom The Moon Doth Shine"; just to name, in my humble opinion, the most fleeting and precious. Those that irreversibly hunt in the hidden limbo of our primitive characters and refute all their colors, smells, deformations, and pains, as if they were, ultimately, distant and weeping parts of a lost and blurred soul, sad and abandoned because forgotten, invisible to the eyes and deaf to any noise, because resigned to its most inevitable destiny.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Fair and 'Guiling Copesmate Death (07:05)
"Gaunt and gnarl'd
Reflecteth the silver shield this welkin aghast,
And with haste translateth to gild'd black post and fast."
"Anon - anon, say I! - the lid aside,
Crawl without this velvet-clad coffin blest,
The bottom sand of the hourglass is at tide,
"Sensing this pine is as deep as the deepest chasm,
'Tis and hath e'er been merry blood to pest -
Hither! - cede and fulfil my phantasm!
To be adust for time longer can I not bide,
Cherish me and sonorously do me laud -
Hence the heart hale out thro' the chest!
For dread! - thine eyes will behold a guise faugh'd."
Misery thee?! - Rather misery me! -
For in Time's durance am I naught but wee."
"This tender and loving pest I to thee bequeath,
Thence switly wilt thou errant to 'Neath."
"And to me should'st thou be the humblemost knave,
Lest fear! - spit I on thy cist and grave! -
Lest leer I at thee and do bewitch,
And the tharms fluttering claw'd and eldritch."
"To conquer thee and thy blood for glore
Art thou my afeard and reluctant whore;
Irksomely coy, save wiliéd by alarum,
Bear this torture and maim with decorum.
"If e'er always was I this blissful and blithe
Would I resign to but its wee tithe."
"Purvey my ache and quench my profoundest urge,
And to thee will I sing the lull-dull dirge;
Deliver thy blood like the rill filleth the ghyll."
"Burrow to the trothplight with Night and Devil! -
Bid Him to league with me - forsooth, merry to 'come 'twill."
"Whilom wast thou vestal, yet now flit to thy tryst,
Elsewise will I coerce thine consonantry to turn whist;
Grasp I the snath and cut off thine breath,
"Death - oh! fair and 'guiling copesmate Death,
So that thou canst in darkness and inferno vester,
Be not a malais'd beggar; claim this bloody jester!"
For do I solely what He to me liefly saith."
05 And When He Falleth (07:08)
"Be my kin free fro carnal sin,
Bride the thoughts of Master."
"There hath past away a glore fro the Earth;
A glore that in the hearts and minds of men,
Men demented - blindfolded by light,
Hourisheth as weed in their well-groom'd garihs."
"Might I too was blindfolded ere,
Tho' years have master'd me
A masque of this to fashion:
Seer blest, thou best philosopher!"
"Tis the Divine Comedy -
The fool and the mocking court:
Fool, kneel now, and ring thy bells!:
We hold the Earth to heaven away."
"The quality of mercy and absolution,
Whence cometh such qualities?
Build thyself a mirror in which
Solely wanton images of thy desire appear!"
"Tis is Divine Tragedy -
The fool and the rocking court:
Fool, kneel now, and ring thy bells!:
Make us guffaw at thy futile follies,
Yet for our blunders - Oh, in shame;
Earth beareth no balm for mistakes -
We hold the Earth to Hell away."
- That cross you wear around your neck;
is it only a decoration, or are you a true Christian believer?
- Yes, I believe - truly
- Then I want you to remove it at once!
And never to wear it within this castle again!
Do you know how a falcon is trained my dear?
Her eyes are sown shut. Blinded temporarily
she suffers the whims of her God patiently,
until her will is submerged and she learns to serve -
as your God taught and blinded you with crosses.
- You had me take off my cross because it offended...
- It offended no-one. No - it simply appears
to me to be discourteous to... to wear
the symbol of a deity long dead.
My ancestors tried to find it. And to open
the door that separates us from our Creator.
- But you need no doors to find God. If you believe...
- Believe?! If you believe you are gullible.
Can you look around this world and believe
in the goodness of a god who rules it?
Famine, Pestilence, War, Disease and Death!
They rule this world.
- There is also love and life and hope.
- Very little hope I assure you. No.
If a god of love and life ever did exist...
he is long since dead.
Someone... something rules in his place.
"Believe? In a deity long dead? -
I would rather be a pagan suckled in creeds outworn;
With faartytales fill'd up in head:
Thoughts of the Book stillborn."
"Shadow of annoyance -
Ne'er come hither
...And then He falleth,
He falleth like Lucifer
Ne'er to ascend again..."
07 Black as the Devil Painteth (05:26)
An artist is what is call'd the self that the brush holdeth -
Though hath it then caringly caress'd the Canvas of to-morrow?,
O Canvas! for thee I hold my tool - still! passionlessly it quivereth,
Minding not that my hands are more than apt;
My Muse,
Where is hidden
The blue-huèd arch 'neath the High Heaven's rich emblazonry,
The flowery meadow, embrac'd by the horizon - snowflakèd and aèry mountains,
In which the barebreastèd maidens dance to the lay o' midsummer,
Aloft the distant lazy flapping of the doves in vainglore.
O Canvas!, wherefore canst thou these images not allow? -
I deem a projection of my Theatre they should be! -
Then, I challenge thee the wisdom of naysaying the yearns o' mine -
What is this unforseen that not enjoineth light shades to be skillfully paintèd?
The raven sky prey'd on by the snowfill'd, blustery clouds,
Unadornèd the meadow - hunger driveth the wolf out of the wood,
The maidens chainèd and whippèd within a dreary dungeon -
And, lo! 'twixt the wizen roses a mossy grave:
�The Devil is as Black as he Painteth' -
O Canvas! wherefore?...
10 A Rose for the Dead (05:12)
-- oh - my dearest; the sweet music in the ear -
-- albeit, daresay I, the lullaby of an everso dark sleep.
my precious,
likest thou what emergeth yon the distant?
the throbbing and breathing of life's machinery!
-- wanion its oh so damndest soul!
-- with the devil-instrument it we shall reap,
-- after the banquet obscur'd in our thole,
-- its blood so lovingly across our faces smear
-- lord of carnage,
lady of carnage,
-- one funeral maketh many,
swarm god's acres;
-- two indeed more:
-- blest treat of delight -
give praise for the blood it bled,
grant a rose for the dead! -- grant a rose for the dead!
enraptur'd by the timeless beauty of the
shadowsphere,
we two abide the overlook'd time of the watch.
-- make this cherish'd feast last
-- but until the new dawn ascendeth.
be still - harken the lure of night!
bale in each its damndest shadow,
cloth me in night, ne'er fell rue,
in its face, behold! naught save grue.
pray, ne'er come hither daylight! -- wane to dust the wight,
velvet darkness, thee we ourselves bestow! -- misery it in velvet fright
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Other reviews
By DarKNight
You see darkness and you keep searching for a bit of light, but there isn’t any.
After two years of listening to it, I continue to discover new images, sensations, emotions...
By Noctifero
"The duel is between the growl of Raymond I. Rohonyi and the stunning voice of the angelic (and historic) Liv Kristine."
"The end of a masterpiece you would never want to stop listening to."
