The second disc I hear of the Swedish act The Dead Hours, and again a worthwhile experience. They have an original sound and rather varied compositions, which I find very hard to describe. Classical influences, electronica, ambient, pop and darkwave are just some of the ingredients which make up for an intriguing album.

The album lasts 36 minutes, which I find a pleasant length. To fill the remaining space the promo disc has been filled to the brim with data and audio material, their two previous albums and some loose songs. Some parts make me think of chamber music or twisted waltzes, in other pieces modern minimal electronica plays the overtone, followed by an olf-fashioned organ in the next bit. There are accessible songs with nice poppy female vocals by Lisa Velander, while others are experimental tracks based around spoken word samples.

The music created by mastermind Dennis R Lindfors generally has very rich textures and every composition has its surprises.
Sometimes filmic and melancholic, then again morbid and spooky or simply weird. The best thing would be to listen for yourself…

You can download all tracks and artwork of this album from netlabel Kallisti Gold at archive.org.

The Dead Hours - Embrace
Francesco Gentile - twilight-zone.it

New release for the Swedish Dennis R Lindfors's crepuscular sounds, he's still assisted by the voice of Lisa Velander and others precious musicians. The sonorities proposed confirm a dark magnetism with pure reverberations, an intimate and decadent river of changeable and bittersweet melodies. Structures are always much complex and with fantastic textures, emotionals sonorous embellishment, deep and lofty, lyrics lost into oneiric utraviolet storms. It's an original and elusive style, brilliant for the intuitions, tempting in every magical dimension. Electronic post-dark between romantic carillon and cold abandoned toys, throbbing images of languid obsessions. The little theatre of the inner devotions..."


The Dead Hours - Dead Girl's Waltz
Stefan Koopmanschap, electronicmusicworld.com

I got this album even though I hadn't heard anything from it, or this band for that matter (with this band consisting of three members for this release, Dennis R. Lindfors doing music and Lisa Velander doing vocals, and Petter Gydemo on guitar). I didn't know what to expect, had only heard that it was dark ambient.

I was happily surprised I must say. This album consists of seven tracks, ranging in length from 2:45 to 20:27. But even the longest track is not boring for even a second of it's duration (which can happen easily when the artist isn't doing a good effort in keeping the listener interested, especially with ambient styles). But these artists definately know what they're doing in this release.

The album starts with the shortest track, which is dreamy ambient, of a lighter, brighter mood than other pieces. Hardly dark ambient, more like normal ambient. It's beautiful and opens the album with a bright mood. Immediately after the shortest track the longest track and title track, Dead Girl's Waltz, opens it's slightly darker, epic eyes, to observe, find the listener, and take the listener. The beautiful use of melodic piano and female spoken word gives the track a bit of a filmish atmosphere. This could well be the soundtrack of short film. Drops to nearly inaudible level in the middle, to have the track recreate itself, give the listener an extra dark hole to throw itself into. This is beautiful. The track ends by slowly moving to the background, lingering in the back. Present, yet absent.

When the sounds have not even left your mind, a low droning sound comes in slowly, introducing And Thou Art Dead As Young As Fair. Distant piano can be heard, then leaves again to make way for a haunting female voice. Drums, marching drums, come and go. A haunted track, as if ghosts are passing by. This is yet another epic masterpiece, suitable for a truely scary movie.

Swing Low Sweet Chariot is more dark ambient-ish, with low, slowly altering sounds and again the beautiful vocals of Lisa Velander that keep lingering in your mind long after they've left. It lingers for quite a while actually, when An Hour In A Second has already started. This track is very slow in building, being inaudible at first, lingering on the thing line between being audible and inaudible, in a way that only a few artists (Matthew Florianz for instance, though in a different style of ambient) can do well. I do, however, think that 12:49 is maybe a bit long. At first, especially after the previous track, I am intrigued by the way the track works it's way into one's subconscience, but it does take maybe a bit too long, and resistance might be able to come up against the length of the track in the mind of the listener.

It gets more interesting again with the floating sounds and dreamy vocals of The Room, The Spiral and The Dead Girl, which is dreamy but somehow twisted, digging into your mind and creating a paranoid feeling. A scary feeling.

The album is closed with Frucisierre, which has a lighter feel to it, is more melodic, restoring faith in the world around you again, bringing you back to the normal world. A beautiful ending for a beautiful album.

Concluding, I can only say that people who like ambient, filmish and dark, haunting and slightly twisted, will love this album. If you're not into that kind of music, I can imagine this will be quite hard to get into. It is not a disc to play in the background, it should be listened to with attention.


The Dead Hours - Dead Girl's Waltz
Francesco Gentile - twilight-zone.it

New album from The Dead Hours, Swedish project by Dennis R. Lindfors, that joins dark sounds to minimalist experimental electronic influences, inserting also some refined neoclassical extensions. In this CD, essential synths and delicate surrealistic atmospheres cross luminous micro-distortions, a sequence of sound research and wrapping arrangements which projects our listening onto foggy and fluctuating surfaces, decadent synthetic carillions, mellow dreamy desolations. The voice of Lisa Velander is our travel companion on some twilight paths, vocal formulations that double and twist between echoes and monochromatic perdition, subtle narration of lamented events. Guitars are entrusted to Petter Gydemo to fill up the air with new intimate reverberations. 7 long suites, more than 1 hour of recording, digital post-3D graphics. Authentic masterpieces are the title-track and "And Thou Art Dead As Young As Fair". An excellent and innovative musical taste that surfaces immediately from the very first notes, and a visionary art that captures and inebriates, a fascination that does not vanish to the first lights of dawn. Flares that must be followed in the future too...


The Dead Hours - Dead Girl's Waltz
Funprox

This cd-r by Swedish project The Dead Hours has been lying on the funprox desk for two months now, and though I have played it several times, for some reason it never came to a review. But now it really has become time, because this cd is actually quite good. The Dead Hours is a project of Dennis R. Lindfors, who previously was active in a project called Inimikal. later he was joined by female vocalist Lisa Velander. "Dead Girl's Waltz" is the third album of The Dead Hours, with an additional guitarist called Petter Gydemo. We are treated to an hour of haunting, filmic music, subtle ambient compositions with classical elements. The tracks vary in lenght from 3 to 20 minutes, but never become boring.

The album starts with a light, only slightly melancholic waltz as overture. It sets directly the mood for a dreamy atmosphere. The title tracks brings us more unsettling ambient, with moody piano sounds and mysterious spoken vocals. 'And Thou Art Dead As Young As Fair" is darker and dronier, with recited texts of Lord Byron. Just as most tracks it is build up of multiple segments or parts. In the middle the percussion gets more dominant, almost marchlike, after which sweeping strings enter, followed by a more electronic passage. Towards the end the music gets more tranquil again, with a melancholic orchestral sound. Perhaps the highlight of the album. But the tracks that follow are also quite good and diverse. Although the mood is somewhat dark, the music stays pleasing and esthetic, only the very minimal 'An hour in a second' ask perhaps for too much concentration. Very original is the strangily distorted traditional 'Swing low, sweet chariot'. I must say that Eric Clapton's version is quite different..

Certainly a special and succeeded album, with a nice mixture of ambient and classical sounds. Perhaps a release on Cold Meat in the future?


The Dead Hours - Dead Girl's Waltz
RIK, Flux Europa

The Dead Hours, from Sweden, is Dennis R. Lindfors, Lisa Velander providing vocals, and, on this particular CD, Petter Gydemo on guitar, and Dead Girl's Waltz is their third album.

'Overture' introduces the album with dark synthesised music with an industrial edge. The title track, 'Dead Girl's Waltz' extends to over 20 minutes and features spoken word from Lisa, a pleasing interlude with minimalistist, oriental quality and a dramatic piano finale. I usually find very long tracks self-indulgent and boring but the sound here is good and the segmentation of the track reduces its apparent length.

'And Thou Art Dead As Young As Fair' is a long recitation from a poem by Lord Byron over a synth and piano background, but then changes into some- thing quite different, an electronic-sounding neoclassical piece which itself then becomes more gurgly and electronic, before returning to piano-led filmic neoclassicism. This is another fairly long (over 12 minutes) but segmented piece, a seemingly characteristic TDH approach. Without paying close attention or checking the track number you might think you were listening to another track. 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' is an innovative take on the Negro Spiritual which has been ingeniously transformed into a dislocated and disturbing neoclassical ambient dreamscape with an element of that oriental minimalism already reffered to.

The fifth track 'An Hour In A Second', consists of very quiet, presumably subliminal, hums. It was so quiet to begin with, I had to turn up the volume on my walkman to hear it at all, altough it does get louder eventually. When you can hear it, it's another exercise in minimalism but it didn't have any particular interest or appeal for me. Filling over 12 - in my opinion - wasted minutes, this is the only duff track on the album. 'The Room, The Spiral And The Dead Girl' has a rumbling industrial intro with 'disembodied' string sounds, and spoken word continuing the album's theme. The final track, 'Frucissiere', also has an industrial opening, but develops into a neoclassical ambient piece with bright sounding neoclassical strings, the last dance presumably for the ghost of the dead girl.

Apart from the fifth track this is an interesting and imaginative album that provides a complete themed experience and I enjoyed it.


The Dead Hours - Dead Girl's Waltz
Walnut Locust

Hailing from Sweden, The Dead Hours present us with their interpretation of what the soundtrack for an Edgar Allan Poe novel should be: dark ambient moods with an aseptic industrial streak. The compination of keyboards and guitar overlaid with haunting female vocals creates music of an eerie, foreboding quality. The lyrics, some by Poe and Byron, further enhance this effect. Lock your doors and windows, the storm clouds are gathering.


The Dead Hours - Dead Girl's Waltz
Neversun.net

The Dead Hours is a Swedish project by Dennis R. Lindfors with participation of Lisa Velander (vocals) and Petter Gydemo (guitar). We're dealing with psychotic and twisted paranoia ambient like Marilyn Manson's worst nightmare, melodic and dark with many theme and figure variations, but never flowing into beaty and rhythmic compositions from the very same Dennis' project Encephalitis Lethargica. Way more than one hour of voyages of numb bodies floating into abstract spaces without any will or desire of waking up.
The whole album is evolving slowly and uniformly like experimental Russian movies. If you're not into this kind of music, it might seem a bit static, but if you're an ambient adherent, it will surelly be an interesting addition to your collection.
On their site under the video section there can be seen some simple Bryce animations and experimental videos accompanying the music, but they aren't at all on the level of the compositions. Could be done some more there. Reviewed by Editeur


The Dead Hours - Sea Of Rains
Antony Burnham - Metamorphic Journyman

"In The Dead Hours" is a beautiful piece with scampering piano sound (hasta be sequenced, surely) set to a ponderous indistinct rhythmic backing.

"Endless Grace" sets a charming little piano motif against a moody grey, indistinct backing (which might just be treated traffic sounds!). It's a journey through dusty halls and dark shadows, where the ghosts of chiming clocks drift with the still life motes of time gone by.

"Silently Violently" starts of fragile enough, before rocketing into a full blown Techno BPM'd piece which might have been a decent dance piece were the kick not lost beneath a wave of sequencers for the majority of it's duration. A complex, metamorphic thing.

"Grey Dragon In A Crevice" is set to a somewhat cumbersome drum beat and building block square wave sequence before transmuting into a series of mood pieces which seem to combine an underlying Medieval feel with vocoded noise. It's an uneven, edgy sound.

"The Little Girl Found" returns to a more passive area with humming bars of sound underlying the chiming shimmer of the overlayered keyboards. Whispery vocoder adds more dimensions to this piece of motion-suspended cold winter charm. As it progresses it becomes more pacifying, drifting off into tranquil night.

"Strange New Year" captures an odd mood - from a clicky skeletal intro with a cold wintry sequence, through various transmutations without really losing the frigid feel. Although mixed to the keyboards' favour, this would make a decent slow paced Indie Dance Electro piece. Stark atmosphere.

"Northern Lands" takes over the mantle of the cold atmosphere, warming it a little with muted chords which sound like human voice. When the tune comes in it is apparently a Traditional Swedish arrangement, suspended within the oddyshapes of whirling, cycling synthetics.

"How It All Ends" reduces the sound back to the opening minimal structure of piano and colouration, and makes for by far the most effective sound to be found here. While the tune itself hasn't enough hook to be instant and distinctive, it's still pleasant on the ears and I'm sure would grow with time.

The title of the final track made me wonder if maybe there was some THIS MORTAL COIL influence here, and indeed the thought entered my head on several occasions as I wrote this review. While not being as eclectic, there's still that grey ambience which seems to be a middle ground between ENO's light and the Isolationists' dark - an area not exactly threatening, but sad, and on the odd occasion remotely dangerous. There's also a feeling of cold winter just within reach, held at bay by the most insubstantial of means. It probably travels too far towards harshness to be that similar, but is still a symbiotically varied and enjoyable experience.