THE KILLING TIDE

The bonus tracks on reissues of these early SOL INVICTUS recordings are essentially inscrutable without the media itself, since some are apparently live while others did not appear as non-bonus tracks until a few years after the original album the example here being "Death of the West". But so far I've been committed to generally pretending they don't exist, so let's turn our attention to the bones of "The Killing Tide", which itself could be thought of as being comprised of 50% bonus tracks from the outset. This review will be 50% about explaining this near scandalous revelation.

The first 3 tracks are among the best TONY WAKEFORD and company have produced: crepuscular, atmospheric, lyrically ominous and less vocally oriented than their typical fare, recalling at times of works in which MARK ISHAM has been involved such as the mid to late 1980s work of DAVID SYLVIAN, as do the tasteful keyboard accompaniments. The acoustic guitar and cello arrangement of the lengthiest track "Let us Prey" is more than a little in the vein of ALAN STIVELL's early instrumentals. "In a SIlent Place" and the title track are melodic book ends, which further shortens the original content here but only bolsters the melancholic effect. This section ends with the even more SYLVIAN esque, brief but appealing "Figures on a Beach" .

Remember those non bonus, bonus tracks? It turns out they are reworkings of "English Murder" and "Sawney Bean" from "Trees in Winter", but with different titles like "The Man Next Door is Really Strange", contradicting the usual consensus that cannibals and their ilk often make the best neighbors, ok they at least keep to themselves. "Our Lady of the MIssing Presumed Dead" might just have shown up in wastewater studies emanating from that block if it hadn't been the Dark Ages. This one is really eccentric and somehow eclipses the original "English Murder" except it wouldn't even exist without it. "The Wild Hunt" is an instrumental reprise of "Sawney Bean" and creeps me out rather deliciously, oops poor choice of words. I can't help feeling that Vincent Price should narrate the audio version of this review, other than the line just ending now.

In violation of previous unwritten guidelines, I must mention that the bonus version of "Death of the West" is seismic and has me looking forward to the original. Oh dear. A weird and macabrely wondrous album that is the stuff of 5 stars, two slices spliced from 2 workshops for some artistic or commercial contrivance that make a mockery of similarly motivated marriages down through the ages.