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German Import | As it is to be expected, the ”standard” jewelcase edition of this album is once again available as a luxurious version with a 12-page standard booklet (all filled with previously unavailable photos). The CD also contains a 40-page, specially oversized booklet including complete lyrics, extensive illustrations and exclusive photos all wrapped luxuriously in a gorgeous cardboard sleeve.
Never before has a funeral procession been so glamorous, nor has the dreaded differentness sounded in such a lovely manner! At long last our blessed Saint-Varney-Of-The-Dead is dancing exhilarated across the loneliness of the barren graves again. Ageless like a Goddess, dressed in a flimsy summer-dress of a washed-out dusky pink, with a black veil of crepe and fragile paper-butterflies in the pinned-up bird's nest of her towering hair, she is graciously burying her own affliction.
Musically speaking, SOPOR AETERNUS' new album is truly a great pleasure: Dutch baroque-organs and analogue synthesizers are merging the centuries quite effortlessly, while angelic boys-choirs and powerful male voices in devoted hymn are praising the sexless beauty of their virtuous maiden Queen. The bright sound of the celesta is omnipresent and rolls off like gentle morning-dew of the skilfully delicate web, which, woven at night by all kind of strings and woodwinds, vibrates lustfully from the gloomy toll of the carillon-bells. Undeniably grave are the trombones and trumpets, huge the timpani and drums, and yet they manage to raise such an intoxicating whirl of energy, that even the saddest spirit is easily lifted up to those mysterious spheres of splendorous joy.
ANNA-VARNEY's transgenital art is that of a true tragic actress: her lamenting chant, sometimes oscillating between a warm baritone and the disturbing falsetto of eunuch in despair, is filled to the brim with the most heartfelt emotion, but always free of despite. Her poetry is the fairy-like enchantment that floats across sensually like the sweetest breeze from the Other Shore into our mortal world.