An extraordinarily detailed review of THE BLOOD OF MY LADY, entitled:
"The blood is the life" by Randal Grave - posted
HERE+++++
And the life is, what, companionship, love? The final step, perhaps, but
all others that lay before are formed from the trials of emptiness,
loss. Unto Ashes' first release since the departure of long-time
collaborators Natalia Lincoln and Mariko, The Blood of My Lady is a
pensive, acoustic voyage helmed by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist
mastermind, Michael Laird, with each of the thirteen tracks flagged by
an emphasis on that most intimate of companions. We are fools to think
we can escape our troubled selves à l'extérieur. Thus, we keep searching
there for someone to join us à l'intérieur, our being all the while a
silent, dark calm that belies a turbulent pain unheard save through the
irruption of song.
A tumbling, minor chord delicately rolls through the spaces until that
moment when the light sparks a reflection of her presence, The Blood of
My Lady (Part 1) in liquid, then, before the next step has even begun,
the major disappears.
I have seen the blood of my lady
on mossy green rocks that go down to the sea
in small pools the blood and sand are made one
and she comes home to me
This theme is threaded throughout, finding in the encounters of our
senses, our memories, a series of symbols that continually unfurl,
feeding our emotional past and a hopeful future, forever fated to be
intertwined inside the refuge subconsciously fashioned as we search.
Feel hurdy-gurdy physicality balanced against the breezy mandolin, the
trees against the breath of reflection in Who Has Seen the Wind, a Sonne
Hagel setting of a Christine Rossetti verse; how transient are our
senses, these apparitions we conjure before them. In a rare moment of
propulsive vibrancy, martial drums Echo In Den Wald, the imprint of a
minnesänger charging on his horse, eyes here, there, where lies a
(purposely?) missed opportunity of a simple yet haunting four-note
closeout, a motif worthy of a song unto itself. Perhaps hope, as always,
does nothing but numb -- never simply tease with an overt moment of
bliss -- the belief we pretend to find in our senses.
And so we, for a minute or two, stop and listen to the resplendent
thickness of Jou-An Hou's solo cello laying all to rest in The Tomb of
Your Remains, a ninth-century piece composed by Byzantine abbess Kassia.
There is an ancient weight, a timeless, dominating gravitas found in few
things outside the object of our search. Three-part Elysian harmonies
belie the Vengeance that springs forth unto the world above
ever-churning acoustics, carried on updrafts of classical strings.
Voices sleepwalking deep in the mind come, bearing gifts of sparse,
troubled pathways, desire within, apologies without. It matters not,
dear, for I Will Lead You Down, a scenario played over and over inside,
variations on a chord, no mere physical manifestation. What has
temptation wrought, what have my faults carved from your being.
And though I lean upon you, I will lead you down my love
And though I kneel beside you, I will throw you down my love
And though I am beneath you, I will pull you down my love
Surrender and live, ideal, through ghostly tides of keys, voiceless, in
Our Palace of Ice, built as A Cold Wind (February) blows, reminded by
these stark neo-folk measures and a spoken word, spent, of wrongs and
renewal with the return of the sun:
thawing ice, and smoothing stones
so my love grows a little each day
The cold wind comes from the sea and moves across the land
Keep looking For All My Broken Promises. I am ready to be forgiven, but
is it that simple?
You can blame me now
And though I love you
But who can blame me now?
What can haunt such as doubt shimmering through the boughs, those found
amidst The River and the Hawk; again, a spare, troubadour quality, a
French horn shield, a exhalation both male and female traversing the
hollows up and down the Rhine valley, the fens of England, the backwoods
of upstate New York, the serpentine creek crawling through your local
park.
The next track is an organic cover of Depeche Mode's Fly on the
Windscreen, whose splendid, percussive fade charms The Blood of My Lady
(Part 2); hear the reprise of those chords moving at the speed of earth,
a deeper voice and now, not alone. Her, at last? No, merely a fading
impression of hope coursing through the growing shadow of twilight, the
waning of dawn. One does the only thing one can: keep looking, far
afield, nearby. Keep looking, for She is Everywhere and Nowhere, a
gentle coda of aching piano that finishes this masterwork that is
perhaps their finest, most personal statement to date, the end and the
beginning.
And she comes home to me...