Cold Spring Records
Splinterskin : Wayward Souls (US,2009)***°
A site visitor recommended this item to me, and I understand why. At first I couldn’t get a grip on a deeper purpose of a certain theatrical aspect of the subjects, it was as if I was listening to someone who found another mirror shadowy world to identify himself with/in it, like a Sopor Aeternus identified with the woods, with an interest in that environment, the trees and hidden creatures and the smell of dead wood, with images of skeletons walking by like in an old scary B-movie, just for the art and visual aspect of it, desolate, but somewhere in the middle of oneself. There is in fact so much variation, in singing, in fingerpicking (even being Spanish at times), in mood this is also as much variation as a real life’s vision, where a tree is another one the next hour. The music thoroughly reveals its momentous variations of found situations within a certain frame. You can almost smell the humid fallen leaves of autumn. Some church bells, craws, wolfs or grind foot steps are added ; after a while they become like the accompanying visitors of this world. Pagan-folk lovers will find another variation in this, as well as the neo-folkies a theatrical footstep to something real, even remaining hidden in its form for how much this identification counts and works, it’s up to the next listener’s imagination and new images...
