Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 67
 Oh, Lament! June 25, 2002
Philippe Landry (Louisiana)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
This album has to be THE most dramatic, romantic, gothic(not goth) piece of work i have ever heard. It's so beautifully over-the-top and strong in composition. "Anywhere Out Of The World" is a gloomy and decadant starter with eerie melodic belltones, dark and forboding strings, a pulsing synth bass and, best of all, Brendan's woeful croon. I think Lisa's best moment is during "Summoning The Muse", an engulfing piece with a chorus of angels mourning the loss of everything young and beautiful, causing the sky to just rain down in perfect misery. The whole album is solid, each song keeping a perfect place with in the album, nothing too dull or underworked. This record is a MUST for the passionate, brooding sort.
Cover Art August 25, 2004
Bagel
10 out of 18 found this review helpful
This cover art is a photography of a mausoleum in the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery in eastern Paris, France. The writing on the tomb says "FAMILLE RASPAIL". If you go there you'll see the actual thing...
Dark Classisism at Work February 3, 2000
DAC Crowell (Rankin, IL United States)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This release by Dead Can Dance, from the late 80s, is perhaps the pinnacle of their more classically-oriented period, before they started to work more extentively with the sounds and atmospheres of medieval and other early musics. Everything here is darkly evocative, lush, and supremely beautiful, with a tragic overtone that rings throughout the whole of the release. Especially beautiful is "Summoning the Muse", which sounds like some missing Carl Orff work of ominous portent. This, and also "Aion", are excellent introductions to DCD's work.
A dark masterpiece April 14, 2007
Eric Kelly (San Rafael, CA USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Dead Can Dance's third album is arguably their masterpiece. Even though they continued to explore some of this album's sonic elements in future recordings, they never quite equaled the consistent excitement and richness featured here. Clocking in at a terse 39 minutes, the album delivers a complex and thematically integrated aural tapestry that stands up favorably in comparison to many classic works of orchestra and opera.
Having said all this, if you are a fan of their later work, when they incorporated more world music, drumming, and acoustic pop styles, you may possibly find this album not to your taste. It can be slow to grab the listener - the pace is generally deliberate and stately, and it took repeated listenings on my part to really appreciate the genius of the work.
Comprised of the duo of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, Dead Can Dance on this album took the approach of dividing it evenly between the two principals, with the first four tracks featuring Brendan, and the final four showcasing Lisa. By this time in their career, DCD had completely abandoned the 80s new wave roots evident in their two previous albums, in favor of a sound much closer to opera or chamber music than to mainstream pop. The overall tone is archaic and ominous, with sepulchral backing choruses, chilling Bulgarian-style wailing vocals from Lisa, chiming bells, moody strings, and dreamy, soaring vocals from Brendan.
Brendan's opener Anywhere Out of This World echoes and surpasses the mood of Enigma of the Absolute from their previous album, building to a shimmering climax. This then shifts to the dark and hypnotic instrumental Windfall, one of the best tracks on the album, followed by what is arguably the weakest track, In The Wake of Adversity, which establishes a brooding mood but never really goes anywhere with it. Brendan achieves his pinnacle on his final track, Xavier, a mythic tale of tragedy delivered over a deep soundscape of keyboards and climaxing in soaring romantic strings.
If Brendan's first half of the album is inspiring, Lisa's second half is dazzling. Her ethereal vocals were made for this kind of orchestral arrangement, and she displays a remarkable range on these four tracks, from spine-chilling operatic declamation on Dawn of the Iconoclast, to wailing middle eastern diva on Cantara, to angelic multi-tracked chorus on Summoning of the Muse, and finally to the amazing showcase of Persephone, which finds her running the gamut from gutteral alto to sweet soprano.
Those who like the sound of this album may want to check out Lisa's later solo work, The Mirror Pool, which also uses some orchestral arrangements, as well as her amazing collaboration with Irish classical composer Patrick Cassidy, Immortal Memory.
For my money, their best album March 6, 2001
Scott Sweet (Colorado Springs, CO)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
"Within the Realm..." remains in the pantheon of my CD collection. The first minute of the opening track pulled me irretrievably into goth/darkwave. I married the woman who loaned it to me. I think she said "yes" just to get the tape back.It isn't New Age - it's Dark Ages. Brendan Perry was the Frank Sinatra of goth, with his soothing tenor flowing over medieval, operatic pop. Lisa Gerrard - well, just read the other reviews. She must have at least a two-and-a-half octave range. Dead Can Dance was (They broke up in 1999) almost as good as Lycia at changing environment through sound. Throughout this album, you're walking alone through 15th-century castle halls at twilight. The sheer yearning Perry brings to "Xavier" rivals fellow Irishman Van Morrison's rendition of "Motherless Child." "Cantara" is, of course, a primo booty-shaker if you're dancing in a room full of candles with amber hanging thick in the air. All the songs have that echoing, cinematic quality that works so well in dark music. Like most DCD albums, there are no lyrics. For the murkier songs, you can find at least one website that has their lyrics. "Within the Realm of A Dying Sun" harkens to a night when "gothic" was an actual historical period, not just graveyard chic.
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![Within the Realm of a Dying Sun [Re-Mastered]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41JJevvpgmL._SL500_.jpg)