All My CDs, pt 42: Elyria

Elyria - Faith and the Muse

Having fully digested Vera Causa, I knew I was going to eventually acquire Faith and the Muse's entire discography - no stopping at two this time. The choice of which album to get next could be completely arbitrary. So I chose Elyria, their first album.

Since that original purchase, it seems I've listened to this CD less than any other by the band. In fact, it's almost as if I am familiarizing myself with it for the first time now.

Elyria is spooky. Even for a band usually identified as "goth", this album has a significant creep factor to deal with. I think this is partly because, unlike bands like Evanescence that are uniformly dark, Faith and the Muse include enough brighter elements to provide a decent contrast and draw attention to the macabre themes.

It begins with the obligatory song made entirely of percussion, minimal melodic instrumentation, and Monica Richards vocalizing wordlessly and harmonizing with herself. The album proceeds with lyrical works such as the mournful ballad All Lovers Lost. The most upbeat, folky tune, The Unquiet Grave, describes a mourner's communion with the spirit of a deceased lover. All of these have just enough lightness mixed in to make the darkness all the more striking.

Midway through, however, the album turns spookier still, and the spookiness has a very different source. When To Her Lute Corinna Sings is a jilting tune reminiscent of a blind walk on jarringly uneven ground. It's followed by Caesura and The Trauma Coil, spoken-word poems accompanied by eerie atmospheric music.

The happiest song of the lot, Heal, has soothing lyrics but the melody seesaws between gloomy verses and a more lilting chorus. It seems to be about the tension between darkness and lightness heard throughout the album, and distills all into those two factions: Faith and the Muse. “Salute the essence / the essence of two performers / a pleasure-ridden torture.”

It is said that without pain we cannot know joy. I personally believe this is false - a platitude to give meager comfort to the suffering. What is true is that the sources of joy are often also the sources of greatest pain. Victory cannot be achieved without the risk of failure. Chasing after a dream may mean giving up on other goals. And love inevitably results in loss and grief.

While Evanescence simply revels in its own self-indulgent pain and melancholy, Faith and the Muse presents a much more mature approach to the romanticism of pain by showing the complexity with which it is interwoven with pleasure and with life itself.

Next: The Burning Season