blksqul's Full Review: Annwyn, Beneath the Waves by Faith & The Muse
Feed me music. That's what I ask of all my CDs. And this second album from atmospheric-Celtic-incisionary-visionary outfit Faith and the Muse excels at it.
The first track, "Annwyn, Beneath the Waves," is so powerful sonically that the drums, guitars and bass of William Faith overpower the listener, throwing us into the drowning tide that Monica Richards sings about with poetic precision and sensual abandon. Her lyrics are no mere playthings and trifles -- they are as haunted and eloquent as the waves eating away the shoreline. That pervasive, evocative and unstoppable. The spirit at the bottom of the world rages, submerged in lost faith and wait. Come to her.
"The Silver Circle," then, is the sound of your waterlogged body washed onto shore. Almost medieval in feeling, firelight and moonstone, searching through the mist for survivors. Only to find a ring of hooded figures warming themselves by a green, licking flame. The storm comes in Faith's instrumentation, as Monica Richards, mightily in love, commands "Come alive, come alive." That she is able to take Celtic mythologies, genealogies and goddesses, make them personal and intimate is her rare gift. One you should listen to again and again.
"Cantus" begins as mournful as a violin shuddering to a close in an empty room. The last smoke of the flame tasting the sky. Then drums command a tribal dance, Richards pitched low and sinister, seductive and omniscient. The keyboards sound like horns and flutes and all manner of wind. All the better to lash you backwards at her Latin chorus, backtracked by herself letting out a haunting elegy of sound. Yes, there is a story at work in these tracks, but the genius of Faith's sounds buoy up Richards' lyrics to such a point that you feel them pressed close and warm even without comprehending every word, or you (as I) invent your own narrative.
"The Dream of Macsen" opens with a vocally manipulated William Faith lording over a story that makes him sound like a god watching over us with a combination of love and contempt. The music behind wavers, circles, trying to form notes but falling into atmosphere, afraid to break the spell by turning into melody. Then Richards comes in with some of her most powerful singing so far -- smooth, echoing, velvet tones of release. It grows more elegiac as it goes on. A solemn flute comes over the thunder into the woods at the edge of the beach.
My favorite song on this release, "Fade and Remain" arrives next, ghostly and distant. Richards uses the full of her mind to seduce the listener. "I'd follow the mirror/aglow with your image/Your water-grave eyes/and your lingering fragrance." When I met Monica Richards in Hollywood at an art show of hers, I told her that whenever Lori sings these words to me, I come undone. She did not know how to respond. Nor should you. Fade and remain.
"Arianrhod" gives us more wordless atmosphere, pensive, swelling, percussive as blood beating and lungs breathing. The two lovers mingle in a bed of sound, while the world unsettles around them.
"Branwen Slayne" places us full into Celtic majesty, the beach being walked along until we come to a castle, distant stone shapes, moss and water, quiet and fire. "Loneliness, patience, wisdom, happiness." Are these stages, a spell, a call to the goddess singing down across the miles? It grows pregnant and expands, birthing questions and a solemn serenity that develops stronger and quickly into belief.
"Hob Y Derri Dando," a traditional Welsh song, filters into the quiet left by expectation. A familiarity on this island, these words of loss and love. Bells, fingers tapping on an instrument, mournful, beautiful voices.
This leads to "Cernunnos," the swirling, boomed-out sounds letting you know that the storm has overtaken the island to such an extent that the sea and the sky are the same. Faith's voice is low and foreboding, the beat sounds like water-damaged industrial, the ship is truly wrecked, and the gods are making the storm come faster, uglier, until even outlines are unknown in the drenching rain.
"The Hand of Man" continues the water-damage as it opens. Sounding for all the world like the first song left on tape in the sun, found among shells and wreckage on the lashed upon shore, played back at half-speed. Faith sings with as much seduction and precision as his soulmate. The result is a warmth, and a chill. "Yes I can see right through you." Transparented by the sun. This is the first clue that the storm has passed, that perhaps you are the ghost -- wandering a land of imagination, remembering your final moments as though going on a long journey.
This fades into Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "The Sea Angler," his text backed by music even more submerged and spectral than the words, or the previous tracks. The aura of this track confirms it -- Richards is singing over your grave. The piano matches her voice in its solitude and sorrow. Sent to heaven by her voice, but your time here is not done yet. You cling to each sound, hoping it will never end.
"The Birds of Rhiannon" fly over, both a promise of new life and a signifier of old ruin. Sunlight touches the pinions of their wings, you feel it in each holy measure of this instrumental. The storm is over, the dead have been counted. You are among them. But you are also with the birds. Feel the wind, the bitter sea far below, churning, reflecting in obfuscated shapes your passage.
"Rise and Forget," the antithesis of "Fade and Remain." Loud and hungry where "Fade and Remain" was soft and pleading. Richards lets out a more rock voice here, raging into the silence, pulsing with the near-metal guitars. Angry, wise, alone. She is left with grief, the watchful goddess seeing her flock die, and she is not taking it quietly. Could there be another storm on the way?
Yes. She lets us off into the ether, via "Apparition." Another instrumental, Faith helping us on via tortured squalls of guitar. Water-damaged whispers, broken notes, ancient spaces.
We have just died for the power of music, by its own hand. Was it worth it? Oh yes.
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