Unique world-fusion and gothic icons bring iridescence and majesty to triumphant 2012 London concert
10/10
Dead Can Dance haven't toured a new album since 1996's Spiritchaser and haven't embarked on a global jaunt since 2005 at a time when gigging began to take its toll on their enthusiasm for producing new material. Thus it's taken the best part of a decade for the duo to take the deepest of breaths and finally get an album completed - and boy, what an album it is. Its title, Anastasis, means 'resurrection' and 'between two stages' and is as confident and strident an album as Dead Can Dance have ever made - Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry still craft a beautiful song from all corners of the globe, all of which translates brilliantly inside an amphitheatre like the Royal Albert Hall. Frankly, DCD would sound sumptuous in a shed or a shopping centre, such is the magnificence of their enticing inventory.
Tonight, the emphasis was, not surprisingly, on Anastasis. All eight songs were performed with pin-sharp accuracy and attention to detail with only the eerie Eastern-influenced Agape having a quicker pace bestowed upon it. The live arena is perfectly suited to the new material, arguably the strongest clutch of songs on offer tonight in terms of filling the space in the hall.
The opening Children of the Sun is almost propelled exhaltantly through the roof by Perry whose resonant baritone burnishes each note with power and authority. In fact, as the show continues, Brendan's songs just get better and better and by the time we arrive at the set-list concluding All In Good Time, easily the new album's most lachrymose and haunting piece, he's sounding like he's never been away, perhaps even just starting out again with a youthful vigour and vitality. Lisa Gerrard, on the other hand, was emphatically mesmerising throughout, her take on Glossolalia still as charged with electric magnitude that, on occasion, seemed powerful enough to light up the entire venue.
I really can't pick a highlight - perhaps Perry's 'new' songs Ime Prezakias and Lamma Bada, combinations of Greek satire and lovelorn lament, maybe the rare surprises from earlier releases such as Dreams Made Flesh (from This Mortal Coil days), Sanvean from her Mirror Pool solo project or the pairing's note-perfect unification on The Host of Seraphim. Perhaps the encores - tonight was the second time in a few months that I've heard an ex-4AD act gamely take on Tim Buckley's exemplary Song to the Siren (the other being Elisabeth Fraser at this year's Meltdown). I'd say Perry wins hands-down on this occasion.
They could have played all night but, as it was, they played three encores, ending on the little-known Rising of the Moon sung solely by Gerrard before finishing with an almost apologetic and abrupt halt, the audience prematurely clapping her finale a few notes short. It really was over.
Whatever the highlight was, if you were here tonight and enjoying the two-hours of what felt like a near-religious phenomenon, you might hail the entire performance a runaway success - So would I. And so I have. If and when they tour again, you simply will have to add it to your 101 things to do.
As a sidenote, the support act was touring-member David Kuckhermann who plays enchanting wok-shaped steel pans called hangs. His nimble and adroit percussive abilities earned him plenty of sales at the merch-counter, his music being a fusion of Thai and Indian finger-drumming that almost defies the limit of having ten fingers or two hands. His CD The Path of the Metal Turtle is well worth getting.
Pic from www.deadcandance.com
For information about Dead Can Dance and live shows, head to Allgigs here
For a guide to their recorded music, already published on this site, head here