WITHIN THE REALM OF A DYING SUN

Eight graceful hymns of gothic dread make up the contents of Dead Can Dance's third studio album 'Within the Realm of a Dying Sun', a work that sees the band honing their craft and completely embracing the ethereal beyond-ness of their branch of dark and folksy music. Taking up the experimental approach from 'Spleen and Ideal', it is the extraordinary scope of this album (together with the fantastic performances and production) that make this arguably the strongest offering of the duo of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, their most abundant and coherent recording from start to finish, the ideal example of a musical niche referred to as neoclassical darkwave, a slightly unsatisfactory descriptor of music that carries such strong emotional qualities as on '... a Dying Sun'.

Nevertheless, this 1987 release remains a great example of how spiritual and transcendent music can get, effectively divided in half between the vocal performances of Perry and Gerrard, the former of the two providing a warm, caressing and profound tone of solemn wisdom, while the female counterpart anticipates the great heights of the uplifting, enchanting elements of the Dead Can Dance sound, together forging a carefully-curated balance between opposites, bound by the orchestrated dignity of the music, performed with great panache at all times, embracing and idiosyncratic. This is a dark and atmospheric album of great quality, from the cryptic enchantments of opening track 'Anywhere Out of the World' to the haunting tones of the instrumental 'Windfall', or the complex soundscapes on 'Xavier', taken on and elevated by the second half of the record with ominous and ritualistic compositions like 'Dawn of the Iconoclast' and 'Cantara', or the absolutely triumphant closing opus 'Persephone', an exercise in orchestrated melancholy, bathed in medieval bliss. Simply an album without confinements, a work that stands on its own with its magical overtones and meticulous grip over the listener, there is an unparalleled scope to this record that renders it incredibly special and unique.

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