Tiamat
A Deeper Kind Of Slumber

Finding a connection between this "A Deeper Kind of Slumber" and Tiamat's first full-length "Sumerian Cry" is truly a daunting task. Those who have known and followed the Scandinavian combo for a long time are certainly used to surprises: from the vitriolic death-metal of their beginnings, the evolution and the ability to amaze have been the real winning weapon of the Tiamat entity over the years, always a step ahead of the rest of the scene.

If in "Clouds" (among the first all-around gothic metal albums) they were pioneers in the heavy use of keyboards and clean vocals, clearly intending to distance themselves from the classic styles of extreme music, in "Wildhoney" (an unsurpassed masterpiece, by the band and the entire scene), Tiamat transcended the very boundaries of the gothic universe, enriching their sound with intriguing psychedelic excursions and increasingly elegant symphonic constructions.

With this "A Deeper Kind of Slumber," Tiamat even step outside of metal (and in some respects, even outside of rock!), inaugurating a migratory flow that in subsequent years would lead many bands, paradoxically coming from more or less extreme backgrounds, towards musical shores and sounds unimaginable until recently and which would have little to do with the metal word.

It's 1997: having lost Hagel along the way (who, along with Lodmalm from Cemetery, preferred to join the cause of Sundown, a negligible electro-goth-metal project), Tiamat become in all respects the embodiment of Johan Edlund's poetic visions. Helping the singer-guitarist (also on keyboards and responsible for the electronic parts), we find those who would become the essential core of the band in the years to come: Lars Skold (inherited from the "Wildhoney" recordings, where he was still a session man: perhaps the least imaginative drummer in the world, but perfectly comfortable with the languid tempos that the situation requires), Anders Iwers (already a guitarist in the aforementioned Cemetery, demoted to bass for the occasion), and an old acquaintance in the Tiamat camp, guitarist Thomas Petersson, a prodigal son who had left the band during the "Clouds" era and who now returns to embellish Edlund's music with his always appreciated solos.

In the making of "A Deeper Kind of Slumber," composed in complete solitude amidst emotional turmoil, abrupt mood swings, and troubled resurrection attempts, Edlund decides to abandon the emphatic and pompous tones that had characterized past production, to embrace a form more suited to the mood of the moment. The fluid psychedelia of Pink Floyd (always a fundamental influence for them) and the melancholic sensuality of Depeche Mode become the coordinates on which the band's new artistic course unfolds, more intimate, personal, and linked to the biographical events of its leader.

The heavy guitars, growls, and the few remnants of a brutal past definitively give way to sophisticated authorial electro-pop/dark. Of the old Tiamat, undoubtedly remains Edlund’s visionary talent, always a promoter of evocative music rich in dreamlike atmospheres, at times melancholic, at times menacing, but always magical and rich in visions: "A Deeper Kind of Slumber," as were "The Astral Sleep," "Clouds," and "Wildhoney" (albeit in other forms), is a veritable dreamlike journey, an emotional continuum capable of estranging the listener and leading them beyond the tenuous boundaries of consciousness, into the elusive realm of Morpheus. This time, however, compared to the past, the atmospheres are enriched by an unprecedented emotional strength, precisely because of the sensations, meanings, and personal experiences behind the album’s creation: the melancholic mood, which has always been a distinctive feature of the band, here appears more human and sincere and is enriched with novel nuances, such as the vulnerability and fragility that hover throughout the entire album, or the evident effort (not always successful and this is precisely the beauty) to adopt a detached attitude toward pain.

The opener (and lead single) "Cold Seed," a simple yet catchy rock track with strong dark-wave influences, is a real slap in the face for those who expect something else from Tiamat, but it is also true that it constitutes an isolated episode from the rest of the album. We go back to the start and resume with the electro-acoustic suggestions of "Teonanacatl", its breath-taking electronic breaks, until the ultimate electronic collapse of "Trillion Zillion Centipedes," a red carpet for the hallucinogenic trip-hop of "The Desolate One": How far from the past’s grandiloquence, yet how much we love Edlund's paranoid whispers that surface from the metaphysical whirlpools of electronics. Sink into the mire, and then emerge among the playful splashes of "Atlantis as a Lover," a vivid testament of a distinguished past: ethereal and evocative as "Gaia" was, but more fluid, with that Barrett-esque chorus and the guitars exploding intensely at the end, called to support the sad song of the violin. As happened in "Wildhoney," the tracks are interconnected, avoiding unnecessary interruptions.

The guitar fades away, and the rustle of the waves returns, airy keyboards rush to the rescue, and then an arpeggio: it’s the turn of "Alteration x 10," simplicity made music, naive in its elementary chords, childlike in its lyrics, but functional to the overall design, which develops sinuously, alluringly, between moments of calm and sudden electric explosions. Calm returns, guitar rustles are lost in the void and give way to the hypnotic bass and ethnic digressions of "Four Leary Biscuits," a moment of ascetic ecstasy: a transverse flute, the Middle Eastern influences of a sitar, hysterical female warbles. Then the harsh reality again, the pain surfacing anew: it’s the wrenching pop of "Only in my Tears It Lasts," cradling us with the melancholy of a soft electronic background and a Gilmour-esque solo, until the dancey rhythms of "The Whores of Babylon," an impetuous and menacing EBM passage, break in.

Finally a bit of silence, time to catch our breath and abandon ourselves to the last section of the album, which in my opinion is the most exciting. The spring poem of "Kite" is just the prelude: "Phantasma de Luxe," opened by an airy arpeggio and Edlund's dark voice, is an apocalyptic ballad of rare beauty. The cheerful chirping of birds is instead the right prelude to the Floydian explorations of "Mount Marilyn," ten sublime minutes of dreamlike rarefaction, an excursion beyond the boundaries of consciousness, between acoustic phrasing, psychedelic whispers, and fine solos.

The true leap "to the other side," however, is made by the title track, rightly placed at the end to represent the emotional peak of the whole work. It rains on our consciousness, the colorful walls of the state of sleepiness rise beside our mental bed: an uneasy arpeggio, chilling synth slashes, and an Edlund in a state of grace (never more faithful to the deeds of the most inspired Dave Gahan than here) go on to delineate the hallucinatory and desolate landscapes that set the boundary between the real and the unreal, between dream and reality.

With this album, Edlund reaches his peak as an author, composer, and free artist unbound by any schemes: although not inventing anything, his is a reinterpretation, in a romantic key with strong autobiographical connotations, of the psychedelic journey, brought back into the dreamlike and visionary tracks that have always characterized his artistic proposal. And while the influences he drew upon are evident and their obvious unreachability, what emerges is something extremely personal and original, all the more astonishing because it comes from a world like that of metal, from which one would expect a completely different type of sensitivity and sounds.

"A Deeper Kind of Slumber" is also, in my opinion, the swan song of Tiamat, who already from the following "Skeleton Skeletron" (what a ridiculous title!) would prefer to abandon the far-sighted teachings of Pink Floyd to adopt as their new muse the entity Sisters of Mercy, ending up falling into a canonical dark-metal style like Him. Paradoxically, even in this, they would be among the first, anticipating a trend that among doom and gothic metal proponents would explode in the years to come.

When you are ahead, you are ahead…