Saturday, October 4, 2008

ARISE FROM THORNS: Beneath an Audience of Stars

Released: 1999

A few days ago I was asked to recommend an obscure band on a forum at UltimateMetal.com and I suggested Brave, whose album Searching for the Sun I was listening to at the time. Before they were Brave however, they existed in a previous incarnation that I liked even more.

Arise From Thorns was a five piece from Washington, DC, that explored a musical direction more favoured by the likes of The Gathering and, perhaps more specifically, The 3rd And The Mortal. Before an Audience of Stars was their only album, originally released in 1999 before surfacing again two years later on Dark Symphonies. This version is a sprawling 14-song, 65-minute epic collection of dark, progressive, avant garde music that is deeply-structured and mainly acoustic in nature that draws heavily from a distinctly Celtic folk background, touching base with the likes of Dead Can Dance, Tori Amos, Björk, Trial of the Bow, the more ethereal moments of The Gathering's current musical slant and even The Cure, but without the strident electronic and electric elements of some of those artists.

AFT instead concentrates on the ingredients of Scott Loose's acoustic guitar and sister Michelle's melodious voice with only the very occasional intrusion of a heavier element -- as in the sprawling ten-minute "The Red and the Black" -- creating a strongly emotional and rather beautiful album. Describing this as "metal" is a bit of a stretch, really, although this has a cult following among some metalheads. This album is very hard to find now, but it enjoys a devotion that is rather well deserved.

  1. Dreaming
  2. Time Alone
  3. Among the Leaves
  4. I Can't Believe
  5. Lure
  6. Surrender
  7. Remember the Stars
  8. Lovelorn
  9. Persia
  10. The Red and the Black
  11. Blue Skies
  12. To Dance by Moonlight
  13. The Calling
  14. Return of the Old Forest

Rating: 90%

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