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Music CD - Dead Can Dance: Spiritchaser
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Music CD: Spiritchaser
Artist: Dead Can Dance
List Price: $17.98
Our Price: $13.95
Your Save: $ 4.03 ( 22% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: 4ad / Wea
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. Nierika
2. Song of the Stars
3. Indus
4. Song of the Dispossessed
5. Dedicace Outo
6. Snake and the Moon
7. Song of the Nile
8. Devorzhum
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0093624623021
Label: 4ad / Wea
Manufacturer: 4ad / Wea
Number Of Discs: 1
Publication Date: 1996
Publisher: 4ad / Wea
Release Date: 1996-06-25
Studio: 4ad / Wea
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The best album yet in my eyes
Comment: This is by far in my opinion the best album DCD has put out. I heard that it's out of print, but I could be wrong. If so I wouldn't waste time not buying it. I think anyone who likes DCD would be extremely satisfied with this piece of work. The sound is similar to the other albums, but much more more dynamic, dark, etheric sounding, yet calmer at the same time. Great for those who are really into trance music!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A mediocre end to a great group
Comment: Spiritchaser is Dead Can Dance's seventh and last studio album, and sees them forging deeper into realms of ethnic music. Unfortunately, this is also their least successful album musically, and is a bad place for anyone unfamiliar with the group to start their explorations.
One criticism leveled at recent prior albums by the group was that the duo of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard appeared to be getting more and more disconnected from one another musically, with albums featuring a succession of "his" and "her" songs. The two appear to be attempting to rectify that failing throughout this album, with more integrated vocals and more of a group feel throughout. There is a greater emphasis on percussion and drumming, as well as the reintroduction of some electric guitar, mostly unheard on the duo's albums since their second album some 11 years earlier.
Alas, most of the percussion is uninspired, and although several songs begin with promise, almost all outstay their welcome: the opening track, Nierika, ultimately becomes repetitive and boring, the exciting opening four minutes of Song of the Stars (featuring Brendan reading an Iroquois invocation over drones and native drumming), gives way to an interminable six more minutes of guitar noodling and chanting, the initially catchy The Snake and The Moon devolves into repetitive vocal refrains, and even the addition of gamelan to the instrumentation of the eight minute long Song of the Nile can't save it from tedium. Worst of all is Brendan's cringe-inducing stab at Caribbean music in Song of the Dispossessed; one keeps waiting for him to burst out in a chorus of "Day-O!"
Along with the beginning of Song of the Stars, two tracks save this album from wretchedness: the middle eastern flavored song Indus, which at over nine minutes is a bit long, but Lisa's vivid singing carries the listener along, and the absolutely gorgeous closing track by Lisa, Devorzhum. This wordless song has been used in at least two movies, and it's easy to see why. Lisa's singing is at its sweetest and most achingly beautiful here, and drifts atop a layer of drones and gentle guitar strings. By itself this song almost justifies the purchase of the album.
An instrumental outtake from the Spiritchaser recording sessions, Sambatiki, was released as part of the 1996 concert tour souvenir book, and also appears on the DCD box set. It features the same drumming, twangy electric guitar and ethnic instrumentation as much of the rest of the album, but somehow works better than most tracks that unfortunately made it on to the final release.
For those just beginning to explore Dead Can Dance, move on now and come back to this album later if you know you love the group and have to have everything they ever produced. A better starting point for beginners would be the live album Toward the Within, the early collection A Passage In Time, which features their pre-1990 work, or the career spanning two disc retrospective, Wake, though this last has some rather odd choices in the track listing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Monument of Music
Comment: Their last one - and one of the best, for sure. This duo has single-handedly created a genre of its own which they inhabit almost by themselves. And at the last moment they gave as yet a new direction, more into tribal and latin spheres. Nevertheless, this IS Dead Can Dance: Their mood, their melodies, their voices are ever present. Listen to it more than once, more than twice - and you will find them. From "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun" to "Aion" to "Into the Labyrinth" to "Spiritchaser" they have conquered the world and will forever stay with us.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Spiritchaser Digital Bongo
Comment: It seemed like it took a long time for this one to come out. I don't think this is their BEST album but there are a few winners. The production is crispy and digital like Labarynth but that can make them come off a little dry as on this one. A change in focus to African, Native American, Latin and Aboriginal ideas is cool in pricipal as Dead Can Dance was always revered for moving on with their awesome journey. I do agree with the reviewer that says that maybe some actual Africans or Latins to listen to might be better. Perhaps. This is an overall hot-weather sounding album but very digital in it's quality. I think their handeling of Native American and Aboriginal concepts goes over well as does Perry's lyrics and Gerrard's "stairway to the spheres". This probably would have been a transitional record as Spleen and Ideal bridged them from a spooky murky post punk experimental band to their most well known period. This would have bridged the more technological production and drum heavy period with whatever came next. But...this was supposed to be the last one. No more Dead Can Dance. But..then..in 2005 they go on a huge world tour and release live albums that turn out to be half full of new songs...this time..almost political (if you can believe that) with the great Joy Division influced post-punk lyrical classism that not so many can pull off. I do hope they play some more together and that this Spiritchaser is NOT the actual last official studio record by this amazing band. It may be said that perhaps a lesser record by this band is far far better than the best material of so so many. This is one of their more pychedelic offerings though. Strange though...you may notice their studio records are never very long in duration.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Worst DCD album
Comment: If you are new to Dead Can Dance, please do yourself a favor and don't buy this album, which is by far the worst album they have ever recorded. It shows DCD's lack of new ideas and reworking of tired ones. You should start with _Within the Realm Of A Dying Sun_ or _The Serpents Egg_ instead.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Listening to Dead Can Dance is a transcendental experience. Enriched with dedications to the living Gaia, their creations subsist in natural and other worldly realms. Initially crafting songs which augmented their Australian roots with Gothic and Renaissance traditions, the group have since grown to encompass a hybrid of global sounds. On Spiritchaser the enchanted souls of founding members Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard shine in this, their most ethereal LP to date. Whereas earlier endeavors succumbed to genres grounded in eras of the past and non-Western present, it's immediately apparent that this album has loftier aspirations. Hypnotically threaded with traditional and electronic instruments, the exorcism of each song touches upon the universal essence beyond. While Gerrard's heavenly vocals are used primarily for instrumental effect, Perry's fertile lyricism both compliments her efforts and expresses the spiritual associations related to the album's title and meaning. Intrinsically delivered with shamanistic connectivity, the sensations ritualize the modern mortal. --Lucas Hilbert
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