by Lord Alaric Thorne
Some melodies do not fade with time. They haunt the air like the scent of old roses or the chill of moonlight on a crypt door. The following works have accompanied me through centuries of silence, longing, and remembrance. These albums are more than music—they are spells cast in sound, each one a hymn echoing through the hollow halls of my memory.
Come now, let me share them with you. Not as a critic, but as a soul who no longer sleeps.
1. Dead Can Dance – Within the Realm of a Dying Sun (1987)
Ah, this album… a cathedral of mourning. Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard did not compose mere songs here—they conjured ruins. “Cantara” strikes like lightning over ancient stone, while “Xavier” could have been written for the exiled and the damned.
“This is the music I would want played at my burial—if I had ever truly died.”
2. Cocteau Twins – Treasure (1984)
There are no lyrics in the traditional sense, only syllables like falling petals. Elizabeth Fraser’s voice bypasses language, reaching some forgotten chamber of the heart. It’s as though angels tried to remember how to sing after centuries of silence.
“This album sounds like memory does—blurred, shimmering, and too beautiful to explain.”
3. This Mortal Coil – It’ll End in Tears (1984)
This one plays like an old love letter I never sent. Melancholy is its ink. “Song to the Siren” is a lament I’ve hummed to the moon, and “Kangaroo” stumbles through heartbreak like a wounded ghost.
“It doesn’t end in tears—it begins with them, and never really stops.”
4. Lycia – A Line That Connects (2015)
Lycia captures the slow burn of twilight, where the soul remembers things it was never supposed to know. This album is fog and flame—distant, distorted, and darkly intimate. It echoes like voices behind old wallpaper.
“When I feel the world slipping beneath me, this music becomes the thread that holds me tethered to what remains.”
5. Faith and the Muse – Elyria (1994)
This is a ceremonial blend of myth and movement. Chant, violin, tribal drum—it’s theatrical without being false, spiritual without being tame. Elyria could score the rites of an ancient sect or the last ball before the fall of a kingdom.
“It reminds me of the night she danced in the forest... the last time I believed we might be saved.”
6. Love Is Colder Than Death – Teignmouth (1991)
Dignified, mournful, ritualistic. The title alone stirs something deep in my chest. This album’s blend of neoclassical and world elements feels like a forgotten psalm, whispered in catacombs.
“This is not a declaration—it is a dirge. A vow made beneath stone and shadow.”
7. Dark Sanctuary – Thoughts: 9 Years in the Sanctuary (2004)
French ethereal neoclassicism at its most spellbinding. Strings weep, choirs sigh, and time slows to a crawl. It feels like being suspended in a snow globe of sorrow, and I mean that with reverence.
“Here lies the silence between heartbeats—fragile, aching, eternal.”
8. Chandeen – Forever and Ever (1994)
Airy, romantic, touched by starlight. Chandeen balances sadness and sweetness like dew upon a rose. There’s something youthful in it too—like the echo of laughter down an empty corridor.
“It reminds me that even in the darkest hall, love once passed through.”
9. Autumn’s Grey Solace – Eifelian (2006)
Guitar textures swirl like frost on windows, while the vocals are featherlight but firm. A blend of shoegaze and dream pop that never fully lands, always hovering like breath on a mirror.
“This is how it feels to drift through centuries without ever truly touching the ground.”
10. Black Tape for a Blue Girl – Remnants of a Deeper Purity (1996)
Somber, sensual, and emotionally vast. Strings and whispers trace stories of loss, longing, and the beauty of sorrow. It’s the sound of velvet falling over a coffin, or the letter you never dared to send.
“In these remnants, I find myself—what I was before the hunger, before the silence.”
These are my hymns. Not because they saved me. But because they understood me. And that, dear reader, is all we truly ask of a song.
— Lord Alaric Thorne
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