Dead Can Dance: Anastasis (Pias / Liberator)

6:55

Released: Now

- Ever since their formation all the way back in '81, Dead Can Dance have not fit easily into any particular musical slot. Lisa Gerrard, Brendan Perry and their various collaborators brought together world music sounds with ambient eletronic soundscapes, Lisa's wildly keening voice and a pall of gothic mood. Where do you put that on the shelf at the record store, huh? Next to This Mortal Coil or maybe Muslimgauze? I'd say throw it into new-age / easy-listening just to watch the horrified reactions of those crystal hugging types, but, then, I know a lot of them love Dead Can Dance. It's for reasons like that I've always had an ambivalent relationship with the band and I can't say that their return after a sixteen year hiatus has changed things much, for me. Brendan Perry's glissing baritone, well sometimes it's a baritone, he does manage some awfully high notes, but at times he's had a pleasantly Lee Hazelwood drawl, perfect for this kind of music. As age encroaches he's sounding more like Scott Walker - which, FYI, is another cult I'm not sold on - a creaky voice with wide and wobbly vibrato. The hippie imagery of opener Children Of The Sun completes the loopy Scott Walker impression, echoing through the dark soundscapes with the chiming zither and bellowing horns. Lisa Gerrard, the more traditional leader of Dead Can Dance's sound, jumps in on the next track, Anabasis. It's like a slowed and hypnotising Greek dance. I think much of Anastasis, which, in Greek means, appropriately, Resurrection, focuses on music of the southern Mediteranean. Its mind-bending lilt is actually quite effective, the only possible nastiness I could drag up about it is the cheesy, basic midi sounds which make their presence very obvious right at the beginning. The middle-eastern harmonies and dance-like spin become much stronger on Agape, which is, if not one of Dead Can Dance's best tracks, an example of the band hitting their straps and doing what they do best. Anastasis continues in the same manner, mixing dark soundscapes, exotic world music harmonies with new age mysticism and cheesiness. Not really ever having been a super-enthusiastic fan of Dead Can Dance's style, I can't say whether Anastasis is a success, except that it leaves me feeling pretty much like I always did about them. I imagine they'll look just as out-of-place in the iTunes store as they did on the record store shelf. I've got a strong suspicion that all those hippies'll be back, hitting download on their Macbooks, the ones with Magic Happens stickers on the back of them. What do I care, Dead Can Dance and they can too.

- Chris Cobcroft.