ANTHOLOGY IV - THE LOVECRAFT COLLECTION

This is the 4th album in the anthology series. While volumes I to III presented songs taken in chronological order from the studio albums between 1988 and 2014, this album consists of the longest HP Lovecraft pieces released between 1990's "Lost in Line" and 2003's, "Providence". The pieces are presented in chronological order with 1990's "At the Mountains of Madness" opening the album, followed by 1991's, "The Festival", and finally concluding with 2003's, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".

During the 1988 to 2014 time frame covered by the anthology series, there were an additional 8 Lovecraft songs that were not included on this album. Most were shorter in length than the songs selected or depicted some of Lovecraft's very obscure tales or poems so were passed over.

"At the Mountains of Madness" was the first large scale Lovecraft adaptation taking on his full length novel of the same name (Lovecraft only wrote 2 novel length works, "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"). This musical adaptation goes through many sections: some vocal, some instrumental. Guitar solos are frequent, but this album is mostly driven by the unusual sounds of the newly released (at the time) Yamaha SY22 vector synthesizer. The SY22 specialized in creating background washes that morphed over time between 4 separate sounds. It presents quite an unusual atmosphere and supports the events of Lovecraft's story of an Antarctic exploration and the unpleasant discoveries it brings very well.

"The Festival" was recorded a year later and was both the centerpiece of the next album, "The False Hollow Phantoms of Beauty" and the longest piece the band ever completed at that time clocking in at 24:59. It of course moves through many scenes and atmospheres staying close to the spirit of Lovecraft's original story. It's pretty much recorded with the same equipment as the previous "At the Mountains of Madness" but with one major difference. The studio had been upgraded to the newest Tascam recorder which included what's called an effects send channel. This technology upgrade enabled the band to better interpret the chaos of Lovecraft's original words, creating a musical world which mirrored the madness of his tale.

"The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is possibly one of Lovecraft's best known works. Setting the story to music required an extensive lyrical interpretation which took nearly 6 weeks to complete. By this time, the band had what was for all intents and purposes, an actual mellotron, if not a virtual one. It was a meticulously sampled mid 70's Mellotron M400 (the white, single keyboard model). Each of the original's 35 keys was separately sampled and the entire keyboard loaded onto a Yamaha Motif. The most well known mellotron string and choir sounds are frequently used throughout the piece. There are plenty of vocals to tell the story and the tale ends with one of the best guitar solo sections the band ever recorded.

As I've mentioned before, I don't rate compilation albums at 5 stars. In the case of this anthology, I'm seriously tempted to break my own rule, but will stick to my guidelines giving this a well deserved 4 stars.