AION

If, as an adventurous folk music fan, you are looking for the first DEAD CAN DANCE album that actually represents a unique and cohesive take on your beloved genre, "Aion" may well be the place to start. The group emphasized quality over quantity here, with fewer undeveloped pieces and the result is a collection of songs that easily exceeds the sum of its individual parts. It's much like seeing a good movie that. over the course of the subsequent week, warmly pervades your consciousness more than you might have anticipated when you left the theater.

I'll admit that a few of the shorter ecclesiastically geared pieces seem timid in the light of some of the more insistent hit songs that followed in the early 90s, but their kitsch factor is also more bearable. Tunes like the evergreen "Saltarello" and "As the Bell Rings the Maypole Spins" leave no doubt as to the new found energy of the group, with their more traditional instrumentation played in a more traditional vein, while "Fortune Presents Gifts" picks up where "Ulysses" left off on the preceding album. Interestingly, probably the best track, "Black Sun" takes us back to more Gothic days again, and seems more than a little to have inspired some neo folk like the British group OSTARA years later. The synths here are are both sinister and divine, a rare and precious combination. "The Promised Womb" is delightfully interpreted by Gerrard, a deliberately moody slow piece gently led by lowly pipes. The biggest surprise is saved for last, with "Radharc" seemingly taking us on a middle eastern journey via Transylvania. When the vocals finally enter, I am left wondering how much cross fertilization there may have been between the likes of MUSZICKAS and even DEEP FOREST and the group under present scrutiny.

Easily DCD's ultimate statement to this point, "Aion" might be one for the ages depending on your point of view, or just an album to make 2011 prog folk fans happy to be where and when they are.