THE SERPENT'S EGG

"The Serpent´s Egg" is the 4th full-length studio album by Australian/UK act Dead Can Dance. The album was released through 4AD Records in October 1988. Their last album "Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun (1987)" featured a dark, melancholic and gothic atmosphere but "The Serpent´s Egg" is quite different from that album. It´s the first album by Dead Can Dance where they showcase their now trademark style of ambient, etnic, folk, Medieval, goth tinged and atmospheric music.

The music on the album is centered around Lisa Gerrard´s ethnic flavoured contralto vocals and Brendan Perry´s baritone ditto. The instrumentation is increasingly organic with lots of different percussion instruments and especially various strings like Viola, Cello and violin. While the three Brendan Perry led compositions "Severance", "In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings" and the powerful and majestic "Ullyses" are among the highlights on "The Serpent´s Egg", there are some absolutely brilliant Lisa Gerrard led compositions on the album too in "The Host of Seraphim", "The Writing on My Father's Hand" and the beautiful a capella sung "Song of Sophia". While rythmic and thematic repetition is a big part of the band´s sound that provide their music with a hypnotic drive, a track like "Chant of the Paladin" does get a bit too repetitive. However if you listen to the album as a whole, even that track works well within the overall flow of the album.

The sound production is very strong. Warm and organic. Just listen to the percussion driven intro to "Mother Tongue". It´s just a wonderful organic and pleasant sound. "The Serpent´s Egg" is upon conslusion quite a surprising release by Dead Can Dance considering the more dark goth tinged and not nearly as organic sound of it´s three predecessors. They really developed their sound at this point and took their music in a new direction. The end result is successful and a 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.