ELYSIUM: Dreamscapes

Released: 2001

Like far too many Aussie releases that come my way, this album was well overdue when it fell into my hands: recorded in 1998, it wasn't released for three years. It's so often the curse of the underground, self-funded recording. Labels can fold, key members can split, or there's simply no bucks around or no one willing to take it up. Elysium had been around forever when this finally surfaced and their past was somewhat chequered, but the hurdles keeping this on the shelf for so long were finally swept away one day, allowing Dreamscapes to unfold its visions of darkness and melancholy at last.

With a mere seven tracks sprawling across almost an hour, expect nothing less from this Sydney band than slow and epic doom of massive proportions! The enormous "Darkwoods and Willows Wild" stumbles into the picture with its grandiose style and ponderous pace, epitomising Elysium's chosen Muse from the very start: a surging, recurring keyboard theme, the slow crash of guitars and drums, Jamie Marsh's cold and grim vocals and the delicate contrast of Avrigus singer Judy Chiara's soaring operatics. Elysium are not merely content with plodding their way through their album endlessly repeating the same formula, however. Long, meandering and slow though it is, Dreamscapes is by no means a turgid experience. Each of the seven tracks here are injected with their own individuality, expansive and almost orchestral in their structure. At times almost painfully slow, Elysium step up occasionally to a menacing mid-pace, and mix in dark, spoken passages and multi-layered clean guitar sections where even the bass, usually the most inconspicuous of instruments, is clearly defined and Chiara's peerless vocals are a stunning contrast to Marsh's evocative, chameleon-like vocals.

Dreamscapes is a huge and infinitely majestic album that is unfortunately impossible to find now, but if a copy does come your way somehow, you shouldn't let it get away.

1. Dark Woods and Willows Wild
2. Graven Bay
3. Elysium (Gallery of the Fallen)
4. These Bleak Enshrined Emotions
5. Remorse at Dusk
6. Leafy Tendrils (Pt. 1)
7. Millenia Gone

Rating: 89%