This is positively weird, as here we have a band with an alcoholic Terminator’s thirst for Metal, of that time-honoured, ‘floor the toms and no sleep till Valhalla!’ variety. So as they throw themselves into ‘Serpentarius’ the lathered drums flutter, but the vocals go for a folkier version of the operatic style employed by Goth Metal maidens everywhere, the bass is positively friendly, the violin calm and sweet, and the guitar itchy to enrage but forced to engage, but that’s the weird nature of the Goth and Metal showdown they have engineered. The Goth side is sedate and picturesque, meaning the guitar needs to learn to move in polite society and so it becomes oddly dovetailed and fanciful. This song drops away to a weird desolate phase that enhances the atmosphere, although I had just been working my way through Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, so maybe I’m susceptible to doldrums right now. Elsewhere some of their rock never hits the spot for me, and we have to remember that rock melodrama + keyboards does = Prog, which requires a stronger stomach than mine. Apart from that they have many demure, charming facets fresh and shiny.

‘Wants Me Dead’ wiggles like it has a reel in mind, but the keyboards extoll a western adventure, and so the keyboards and drum start to gallop together beneath sighing vocals, which is pretty strange. The orchestral woozy carnival waltz of ‘Undead Friend’ is more understandable, pale and drifting, but it starts initially with vocals over piano telling of a decomposing friend come to visit, who luckily passes over effectively, and this touching oddity remains gently imaginative and soothing throughout. ‘Nidhogg’ snaps into devil with two backs mode, comprising interlocked keyboards and needlepoint riffing, while the drums are guilty of entering the fray equally jolly, as they deal with some dragon-related story. It could have done with a less ordered vocal performance, with more passion surging in and out, because it tends to pass you by after a while.

‘Lovely Lies’ is a simple billowing rock emotional wrangle, but eventually pulls on a big guitar-laden overcoat and mopes grandly, relying on repetition but with an essentially beautiful motif at its pained heart. ‘Seas Of Blood’ is easily understandable to anybody Eves-savvy, couched in historical classical atmosphere and for all the guitar threat the rolling feel is unencumbered by the soloing as you follow the bass happily, and the dramatic stabbing end is wonderfully effective. Compared to that subtle epic ‘Deny Yourself’ is just a frilly straight out rock beast with some delicate spaces.

As if to emphasise what a weird collection this is they finish on the playful but disturbing ‘Little Lady Lillit’ with its evil snickering in a slurred nursery rhyme setting, about a revolting specimen you pray will come to a sticky end, but she’s still alive when they leave. Blast!

Rock fans will get most from this, but because they have such a way with a tune which means those of us who prefer to burn flying v’s wherever we can find them can be softly appeased. It’s a very curious thing indeed.

-Mick Mercer-”