DEAD CAN DANCE - Anastasis

The first question that inevitably comes to mind when news of a reunion breaks concerns the motivations behind such a decision. We've seen plenty of reunions over the years: some welcomed with the pleasure of a heartfelt "welcome back", others capable of adding meaningful new chapters to important legacies; but a considerable number have ended up producing work far below expectations.

Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard have achieved a great deal. With their voices, first and foremost, and with their endless quest. In the musical and romantic union of Dead Can Dance, they managed to write some of the most evocative and innovative pages in all of music, setting themselves apart with originality from any label, drawing on an arcane past, blending roots with experimentation, latching here and there onto more or less defined trends, while always remaining firmly anchored to an exclusive trademark sound. Over the years, many have tried to interpret - with results that were sometimes flattering - all or part of their style, some under the banner of pure mysticism (Arcana), some turning their gaze toward greater ethnic contamination and esotericism (Unto Ashes), others still saturating the pure blood of the source material with electronic plagues (Love Is Colder Than Death). Three-quarters of what today tends to be classified under the label of dark-wave owes a great deal of its inspiration to the pair, who, after splitting up, adapted the evocative power of their music to imagery in their respective solo careers: that of film (Gerrard) but also that of intimate songwriting and pure suggestion (Perry).

Today, sixteen years after the maligned but certainly not poor "Spiritchaser" - an epitaph that marked a purely ethnic drift - the two halves reunite, and the Dead Can Dance brand shines once again. Picking up the earlier point, it's fair to ask what a duo whose trajectory seemed like a perfect circle - never once putting a foot wrong on a record, evolving slowly and naturally - could possibly have left to say. For an answer, the hint offered by "Amnesia", the preview the two gave us a month ahead of the album's release, could well have sufficed: Perry's voice, intact and even deeper, guides us into the discovery of a new, distinctly "Mediterranean" sonic universe, as also suggested by the title's homage to Ancient Greece. There's the ethnic flavor of "Spiritchaser", the poetics of "Into The Labyrinth", but also a new, mature expressive force.

Venturing into the depths of the album, that atmosphere of "summery" philosophical reflection Perry referred to when presenting the record immediately emerges, advancing majestically in the evocative, splendid symphony of "Children Of The Sun", reaching ecstasy in its horn-driven finale. Acting as an immediate counterpoint is "Anabasis", where Gerrard moves among arabesques, mysticism and electronics, in a performance reminiscent of "The Mirror Pool", the record that surprised everyone with its stripped-down, essential sound. "Kiko" travels along similar paths, adding that medieval flavor explored and developed on "Aion": the sound is even more rarefied and austere, perhaps more than it has ever been before.

Distinctly Eastern features instead characterize "Agape", a hymn to an imaginary deity, adorned by the vibrant, deep backdrop of the sitar laying down the law as it accompanies the vocals. The harmonic, "cinematic" Gerrard makes her appearance in the solemn march of "Return Of The She-King": her film scores come to mind, in a crescendo that closes with the one and only, thrilling duet between the two vocal halves.

Perry reappears in the touching, romantic miscellany of "Opium" - a "song" with a tribal rhythm crossed by solemn strings, not far from the sculptures of "Ark" - and, above all, in the superb farewell of "All In Good Time", a lullaby accompanying us toward an eternal dream, with the voice practically alone cradling the mind until the formidable instrumental unison of the finale.

Dead Can Dance are back, and their "resurrection" (the translation from the Greek of the album's title) couldn't shine any brighter. "Anastasis" is a record closely tied to their past yet never self-referential, the mature work of a duo whose sound draws its coordinates from timeless styles, just as their music itself seems to be. A great surprise, far beyond the rosiest expectations, and one of the best releases of 2012 so far. Hats off.

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01/08/2012