IGNIS FATUUS

The first time I heard this band, was live at NearFest 2001. I was blown away. Along with Banco (who I liked better), they were the best band at that festival. For some reason, this was the only album I bought of theirs at the time (my friend had bought the other two available at the time, so I figured I would listen to his before buying them myself). Now that I own them all, including the latest at time of writing, Signal To Noise, I have to say this is still my favorite. It is the most interesting and varied, for my taste. Also, it has the most "pastoral" material out of all their albums.

There is a delicacy and honestly to this album that I think is missing from all the rest (though I do like them all). The presence of 3 different female singers and 2 male singers adds to the variety to be found. Granted, the variety I speak of is not THAT dramatic. There is a definite style that goes through all the material, that being the somewhat dark, brooding and heavy Scandinavian feel. But compared to their other albums, it has more variety in song writing and arrangement, probably due to the songs not being wholly the work of Holm-Lupo (though he certainly is involved in most of the compositions and lyrics). But I guess I just like the beautiful, melancholy atmosphere of most of the songs. This is something that they will always retain, but never as strongly and beautifully as on this album.

In fact, the two long tracks near the end, while I've come to really like them for their heavy 72-74 Crimson type approach, seem out of place and a bit too jarring after the softer music that precedes them. In any case, I'm not sure if this is a good place to start with White Willow, as it is not really characteristic of the rest of their output, even though it certainly is not drastically different either. But for me, it was a great introduction to their studio work and is still my favorite of theirs. Hence the 4 star rating.