Dead Can Dance Review

Dead Can Dance

Hello wonderful people…

I don’t know what to do with this band. They’re either really good or they’re really bad… with the exception of two songs I’ll address later. This band has been around for a while, I haven’t listened to all of their discography but I’ve heard enough to form an opinion on them. 

(Lisa and Brendan)

If the name sounds familiar it’s because their song “Host of Seraphim,” was used in the movie adaptation of Stephan King’s The Mist as well as The Legend of the Guardians… aka the owl movie that came out in 2010. They formed in Melbourne, Australia in August of 1981 as a quartet composed of Paul Erikson on bass guitar, Lisa Gerrard was the vocalist, Simon Monroe on drums and Brendan Perry was the other guitarist and vocalist. Following their success in Melbourne they relocated to London, Simon and Paul left the band making Lisa and Brendan Perry the only two sole members of the band.

Despite the fact practically no one I talk to seems to know of Dead Can Dance before I show them the band… Lisa (the female vocalist of the band) has a list of accomplishments that can be viewed here: (link to her Wikipedia) but for some building up of the awesome, she teamed up with Hans Zimmer and they composed the soundtrack for Gladiator and they won a golden globe for their hard work.  

Here’s some stuff from Wikipedia about her vocal range and the songs she sings:

“Gerrard possesses the vocal range of a contralto, spanning from E3-F5. Her voice has been described as rich, deep, dark, mournful and unique.
She also has the ability to extend upwards into the dramatic mezzo-soprano range; examples of such would be on the songs The Host of Seraphim, Elegy, Space Weaver, Come This Way and One Perfect Sunrise. Gerrard however performs more predominantly in the dramatic contralto range in her other songs, Sanvean, Sacrifice, Largo and Not Yet.
Gerrard sings many of her songs, such as "Now We Are Free", "Come Tenderness", "Serenity", "The Valley of the Moon", "Tempest", "Pilgrimage of Lost Children", "Coming Home" and "Sanvean" in an idioglossia (an idiosyncratic language) that she has developed since the age of twelve.”

Dead Can Dance:

Information

And other fun stuff

They started out the 80s with a Gothic Rock, Post-Punk sound and slowly moved out into other genres of music. Dead Can Dance albums weren’t widely available until the 1990s when 4AD, A British independent record label, made a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records and later on with Beggars Banquet Records Group.

Their second album signaled their turn to a medieval sound and an Allmusic reviewer claimed ‘it sounded like it was recorded in an immense cathedral.’ The album went to number 2 on the UK Indie Charts, but their luck ran out after Lisa and Brendan split up and despite Brendan moving to Ireland and Lisa returning to Australia the band still lived on. However, they broke up in 1998 leaving their follow up to one of their albums in limbo. They released a box set which contained “The Lotus Eaters,” and a two disk compilation in 2003 called “Wake.” Lisa and Brendan released solo albums in 98 (Lisa album Duality with Pieter Bourke from Snog and Soma) and 99 (Eye of the Hunter, Perry’s album.)

They reunited in 2005 to release a limited edition recording of 13 shows from Dead Can Dance’s European Tour, 8 recordings from a North American Tour, and a compilation titled “Selections from Europe 2005,” on The Show record Label.

Dead Can Dance released a four track EP in 2011 called “Live Happenings part 1” and part 2 came out in December of that year. They’re up to part four in the “Live Happenings EPs.” Currently Dead Can Dance is on a reunion World tour which started August 9^th 2012 in Canada and will end October 28^th in Ireland.

The band has released ten albums I’ve heard songs from at least five of them. I like maybe four songs in total with most of my annoyances focused on The Serpent’s Egg album. Dead Can Dance has great potential to be completely amazing with their unique sound, and they’ve proved it many times… however there’s no middle ground with them… and that bothers me.

I’m going to say that I can play the flute but I’m not super talented to a point where I think I could do it better than Lisa and Brendan, but I am a writer, and I know that if I don’t like something I get rid of it in some way shape or form. They might like the majority of that they release but in all honesty, I like the band because their songs annoyed the hell out of me until I had no choice but to listen to them so I could get it out of my head. Quite literally the only exception to that statement is Ulysses. I had no idea what to do with “Host of Seraphim,” but it got stuck in my head so much that I downloaded it so whenever it was in my head I didn’t have to go crazy trying to remember what it was in case I forgot the name of the song because when I first heard it, it sounded like a bunch of gibberish… and that’s because it is gibberish… or chanting… something… 

The Serpent’s Egg Mini Review

(Serpent's Egg Album Cover)

The Serpent’s Egg is Dead Can Dance’s fourth studio album, and the last album produced with Lisa and Brendan as a couple and a majority of it was recorded in an apartment block in the Isle of Dogs, London. This was my first exposure to Dead Can Dance, I believe Ulysses was the first song I heard by the band and I loved the medieval sound it started out with. The gibberish Brendan starts out singing also helped for some reason but then when he starts singing actual lyrics I stop caring the rest of the song is boring. I’ve tried listening to the whole song and liking it but I can’t… The only thing I really like about The Serpent’s Egg is the album cover. It’s really interesting.

My opinion on the album is mixed… I hate some of the songs, like Severance. I didn’t want to listen to the song even for the review because it’s a Brendan song and he sounds bored when he sings. On the other hand the other songs are okay… I don’t really love any of the songs on this album. I can’t bring myself to hate it, love it, or even like the album. 

Why I hate The Serpent’s Egg

Severance is the first reason I hate The Serpents Egg album. Brendan sounds bored as all get out, and I can’t stand his voice in this song, actually I have yet to find a song where he’s singing actual lyrics that I actually like. The second reason Orbis De Ignis (Latin for World of Fire) I couldn’t care less about that song… it’s short, not even in Latin, and then repeats which kind of confused me at first, not that random repeating in the middle of the song is bad, but it does confuse me. (Girl in Byakkoya by Hirasawa Susumu is guilty of that too but I love that song.) 

 (Severance)

Chant of the Paladin sounds like Lisa has some kind of congestion and was trying to sing something but it came out like that and they kept it. There’s no change in anything and I can stand monotonous songs… however Chant of the Paladin does it all wrong it’s You’re A Goth all over again but worse because it doesn’t change. At lease Rudy Ratzinger put verses and choruses in his song! Echolalia is a ridiculous song and I can’t take it seriously. I want to laugh at it and then after the third or fourth repeat of chanting I want to tell them both to shut up and stop it because they sound ridiculous

(Chant of the Paladin)

Why I Like The Serpent’s Egg

The beginning of Ullyses is perfect. I wouldn’t change it for the world. Mother Tongue has a good bounce in the beat, it’s interesting and I quite like it despite the fact that its five minutes long. It seems like the one beat will go on forever but after a minute and a half of the cool bouncy beat it stops and changes completely to something completely sneaky and slightly mysterious and then it crashes and burns because it doesn’t go back to the bouncy beginning beat… 

(Ullyses)

(Mother Tongue)

Why The Serpent’s Egg is Boring

They’re trying to convey some grand and epic feel to it but it’s just empty. Song of Sophia is an empty song, there’s emotion there but I don’t care for it. Nothing stands out about it. Seriously nothing at all and that’s kind of sad. Brendan has boring vocals and they’re only vaguely interesting towards the second half of Ullyses, but not really… his voice is lacking something that Lisa’s voice has and I still haven’t figured out what… but I do think if Lisa were to sing Brendan’s parts it wouldn’t work. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place with this topic.

 (Song of Sophia)

Overall Opinion

The album is okay, it’s not great, and it’s not terrible, it’s okay. Should it be the first album you listen to if you don’t know the band? I have no idea this band is like Corvus Corax, an acquired taste and you probably have to like bands of their genre otherwise you’re going to hate just about everything they do.

The Good of Dead Can Dance

Like I mentioned before in the ‘why I like The Serpent’s Egg,’ those songs are good Dead Can Dance songs. Mesmerism from their second studio album Spleen and Ideal (released in 1985 when the band was a quartet,) is a really great song. That’s one of their good songs. The gibberish chanting isn’t annoying or overbearing like it can be in some of their songs, all of the song’s elements flow together and after the chanting there’s actual lyrics. 

(Mesmerism)

Mesmerism’s lyrics:

“Frail of heart
Renounce your fears
Locked away inside
All these years

Remain in light
Renounce your fears
For you have been mesmerized

Break this spell of silence”

It’s buried under everything else that’s going on but if you listen you’ll hear it. It took me a while but I don’t mind it since Hagalaz Runedance does the same thing with Mother of Times but that’s another review for another time. 

Redharc from their album Aion, another song with repetitive chanting that I like probably because her voice isn't all over the place and wobbling. Brendan isn't singing in the song either so that helps dramatically. 

http://www.bestmusic.ro/dead-can-dance/videoclipuri-dead-can-dance/radharc-500939.html

(I couldn't find a video on youtube or anywhere else for that matter other than this video result google gave me, and I didn't see an embed code... sorry)

Last but not least, "Bird" from their album "A Passage of Time." "Bird" has a tribal sound to it, I'm not sure if that's the politically correct term for it but it sounds tribal to me so that's what I'm calling it.

 

Also, Saltarello kind of sounds like a song you'd expect from Corvus Corax, but it's not, there's something missing I believe it's a the bass parts that Corvux Corax adds that makes it not a Corvus Corax song. However it's one of their good ones so here it is.

 (Saltarello)

The Bad of Dead Can Dance

Their earlier works are terrible… as boring as Brendan sounds, his voice does not mix with an 80’s gothic rock stylized song… and that’s the content of most of their first album. On that note, I also don’t like Brendan’s singing. It annoys me and Lisa gets confused with chanting an yodeling sometimes… the fluxions in her voice make her sound like she’s standing by a fan and singing with a majority of Dead Can Dance songs and most of the time it doesn’t work. There’s no in between for the band which is never a good thing because if there’s no middle ground the song is either great or it’s terrible. I don’t like hit or miss bands I prefer the middle ground so I have something that I will always enjoy listening to on some level. I can go months without listen to Dead Can Dance and completely forget they’re on my computer because I just can’t care for the band. They have plenty of talent but if Brendan’s going to sing he needs to do the chanting gibberish and avoid actual lyrics because he’s too dull to listen to.

Conclusion

I wanted to review Mesmerism and the two songs from Serpent’s Egg, but I didn’t have enough material for both songs to make a proper review I liked. So as a result, this happened as well as listening to five whole albums of Dead Can Dance. I wasn’t very happy with the results. The fact they either have really terrible songs or really good songs annoys me and I don’t have a solid decision of the band, I can’t hate them because they have a few good songs but I don’t love them nor do I particularly like them. Therefore I can’t recommend them to anyone because there’s nothing I can say to really sell them to people. Soil and Eclipse, Wumpscut, Assemblage 23, those are bands I can promote and talk about endlessly because they have some really great songs, they have some okay songs, and of course they have some not so great songs. I won’t discourage anyone from listening to Dead Can Dance but if you’re new to their genre and sound you might not like the band at all. You’ll know if you like Dead Can Dance if you like medieval music and chanting or tribal styled music… That’s the only way I can describe this band.