Track Listing

1. Last Embrace
2. Hymn Of Absolute Deceit
3. Diadema
4. Winds Of The Lost Soul
5. Love Eternal
6. Repentance
7. March Of Loss
8. Ascending Of A New Dawn
9. Sono La Salva
10. Lorica Vite

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #285157 in Music
• Released on: 2002-05-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Customer Reviews

In The Wake Of Dead Can Dance...
Arcana are travelling ways that Dead Can Dance walked in years passed, here on "...The Last Embrace" they are creating soundscapes clearly inspired by "Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun" and "Spleen And Ideal", and the result is an elegant, weighty work of art, widescreen in its ambition if at times strangely claustrophobic in its delivery. The mood throughout inspires images of shadowy cathedrals, autumnal woodlands, it feels distinctly black-and-white, and indeed the beautiful artwork on the sleeve impresses this sense from the outset.

The music is orchestral and epic, (synthesized) hammered dulcimer adds a human element to a forboding mythic landscape, the male and female voices are suitably weighty, though the English lyrics that I can discern are simple and somewhat cliched. The title track, which opens the album, is genuinely stunning, and to my thinking the high-point of the disc, a haunted masterpiece. Beyond there the tone of the album remains in the same space, ominous and storm-swept, and relentless (the latter could be taken as a compliment or criticism, depending upon your point of view).

I must admit that whilst I've owned it for a while I don't play this album a lot, the dark austerity of it and leaden solemnity not making it an album I am likely to gravitate towards on any given day, and I have never completely fallen under its spell. "Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun", meanwhile, is one of my favourite albums, it has more depth and dimensions, more subtlety, and more colour (a strange thing to say perhaps of an album painted from a similar palette). I can appreciate that many a Dead Can Dance fan (specifically those with more of a Goth bent) would be absolutely enraptured with this album, a dark soundtrack for candlelit solitude, perhaps.