Label: The Laser's Edge

Tracks:

1. Leaving the House of Thanatos - 8:06
2. The Book of Love - 4:56
3. Soteriology - 5:05
4. Helen and Simon Magus - 9:16
5. Thirteen Days - 2:50
6. A Strange Procession... - 4:07
7. ...A Dance of Shadows - 13:52

Musicians:

• Jacob Holm-Lupo, acoustic and electric guitars, organ
• Jan Tarig Rahman, piano, mellotron, organ, synthesizers, theremin, cals
• Sylvia Erichsen, vocals
• Frode Lia, bass
• Mattias Olsson, drums, percussion
• Teresa Aslanian, spoken word
• Asa Eklund, vocals
• Audun Kjus, flute

The second album of these brilliant Norwegians. After "Ignis Fatuus" there was a total disband in the group, remaining only Holm-Lupo, Rahman and Kjus. Among the new members in noticeable the singer Sylvia Erichsen, with a voice of incredible beauty, even more than Sara Trondeal, and Mattias Olsson, former Anglagard drummer who, of course, does another exceptional work. Jan Tarig Rahman takes charge of the male voices.

In this album the calmness and quiet continue, but the group goes into a more electric, cold and dark, and less pastoral and positive sound compared to the previous album, approaching a bit more to Landberk and Anglagard. In addition, they give more protagonism to the drums in some tracks, showing the force and blunt in some passages.

From the tracks they distinguish the initial "Leaving the House of Thanatos", very melancholy with very good vocal melodies and work of keyboards. The combination of folk, symphonic and Gothic of the exceptional Helen and Simon Magus, where the anger and the blunt bursts in a way already more remarkable than in Ignis Fatuus. "A Strange Procession", a wonderful and frightening funeral track more in the vein of Dead Can Dance, that uses as introduction to the next one, "A Dance of Shadows", probably the most emphasized from the album and the longer, one of the tracks that has became a classic of the group, very depressive with passages of a great beauty, some more Gothic and some of a contained anger, with a spectacular Mattias Olsson.

The rest are more acoustic and pastoral tracks with flutes and mellotrons as "The Book of Love" or the beautiful "Thirteen Days", and the darker one, also nearby to Dead Can Dance with angelic voices, "Soteriology".

Definitely another White Willow's essential disc, practically in the same level than the previous one.

Rating: 9/10

Ferran Lizana