A cause for celebration
Written: Jun 18 '03 (Updated Aug 25 '03)
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The Bottom Line: If you don't like this album, you are a strange and silly person who should not be taken seriously.
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| blksqul's Full Review: Vera Causa by Faith & The Muse |
I'm not sure what I was prepared for. Maybe some really doomy sounding chords and a voice speaking in a fake accent only moments away from pretentia. Or compositions full of spiky guitars and veiled fixations on religious symbology.
But surely not a soaring acapella rendition of Frater Ave Atque Vale by the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, squeezing out rich, thick and feminine harmonies balanced in counterpoint and ache.
I sat up in bed. What?
This led into a song pitched soft and slow, with tinkling pianos like teardrops in the rain. A low, swooping bass sound that was somehow smooth and sensual, not overbearing and thumping. Monica's voice, as she lay in bed, wondering about her place in the world as her cat joined her by the pillow. The connection of eyes meeting eyes. In Dreams of Mine suddenly hit a blurred, synth-layered finale that sounded like a resolution met without a choice.
Holy... Surely this can't all be this good?
Drums started thumping out in slow, tribal grace. Guitars poured in. Monica began singing "It doesn't hurt me (oh yeah yeah oh)." Wait a minute .... was this? The chorus came upon in gauze. "It's you and me. It's you-ooo. And if I only could I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap our places. Be runnin' up that road. Be runnin' up that hill. Be runnin' up that building." A Kate Bush cover that fit in perfectly with the band's own work, pitching the song at a more broken-hearted level than even Bush did?
The spell continued. Familiar songs by Bauhaus ("Hollow Hills") and Christian Death (a soaring, unhinged take of "Romeo's Distress" recorded live and full of goodbyes to Rozz Williams) covered by puissant voices and dirge-toned, thick instrumentation. A wintry Christmas carol, which really reveals for those in the know the combination of togetherness and loneliness of the season. Lots of acoustic picking ("Annwyn, Beneath the Waves"), piano flares ("Patience Worth") and Celtic-themed ruminations on love, loss and folklore ("Muted Land," "The Breath of a Kiss") flitted through the speakers like wind dropping needles from pines.
And this was only one CD. I placed the "Night" one in to hear an audience clapping and shouting out for this barely known band. The connection of voice and music to this crowd, singing songs that would eventually become songs I would know and love as much as the audience. I don't know how this band gets their guitar tones -- this heavy distortion that is still somehow clean and bright, and doesn't push the songs toward heaviness, just layers of wavering music.
I had no idea then that the Evidence of Heaven Tour 2000, where these performances were recorded, was on the back of severe tragedy for the band, not least of which their friend Rozz Williams had hanged himself. Each song became an exorcism ("Cantus," "Scars Flown Proud"), an elegy ("Sparks," "The Unquiet Grave") and a celebration to the power of music ("Annwyn, Beneath the Waves").
The live selections played out like an intimate concert, filled with dark spaces and majestic harmonies, and then cooled down into the afterglow of smooth, darkly creamy remixes. It gives the impression of hearing a wonderful band on a nightclub stage, and then wandering into the chill-out room afterward with a drink and only the slightest need for conversation. Since I had never heard the original recordings, the music was twice as new to me. And, unlike the botch-jobs on The Cure's "Mixed Up," these remixes were done right -- full of unique segues, clattering percussions, and the ability to stand alone as compositions in their own right.
Faith and the Muse's love for words in all their scholarly, intelligent, passionate, infused and beatific power, coupled with the band's expansive palette of music and love of folklore, made this band an obsession for me. I just felt blessed and lucky to have found this band, to have its slow and subtly possessed songs meander its way through my room, the sky growing dimmer and brighter toward midnight.
In truth, I still have trouble believing that this collection of rarities, live tracks, remixes and demos isn't actually a proper album. Everything flows together. Everything is of a piece, mood and time. I don't know how this band does it. How do you release a comp and not feel it to be a bit fragmentary and out-of-focus, a complete cobble-together?
No matter what album you end up with, whether it be Elyria; Annwyn, Beneath the Waves; Evidence of Heaven; this album; or the new one; if you have an open mind and a need for calming, spiritual, sad and beautiful music that never stretches into gloom, but introspection, you've found it here.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
blksqul
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Member: Black Squirrel
Location: Nashua, NH
Reviews written: 99
Trusted by: 54 members
About Me:
This is not really happening. You bet your life it is.
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