Various Excelsis: A Dark Noel 2021
• LP on 140-gram vinyl, Orchid w/Purple & Grey Splatter• Limited edition of 300• Remastered edition• 15,000+ sold on original CD edition. Projekt's 1995 holiday compilation: A dark holiday classic!Spend the holidays in style this year. No more barking dogs or Perry Como for you, uh-uh! While away the frigid hours until the important day with strains of Black Tape For A Blue Girl's Chanukkah, Oh Chanukkah, Lycia's darkly sensual We Three Kings, Love Spirals Downwards' Welcome Christmas (from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas), or Faith and the Muse's pagan madrigal A Winter Wassail. All graced by our lovely Dark Angel prepared to brighten many a dark holiday night. Spend the season right, this year. Turn down the lights . . . it's a dark noel! The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, 1995: This coven of gothic artists does emphasize the night in Silent Night and other seasonal songs on this intriguing set. Eerie, trance-like reworkings of O Come All Ye Faithful and Carol of the Bells seem to urge deep, Druid thought, not dread. Consider this a good time to go commune with the gargoyle statuary at your local cathedral.The Boston Phoenix 1995: Various luminaries of goth, including Lycia, and This Ascension, cover traditional holiday fare. Love Spirals Downward applies a Cocteau Twins-like sound. Faith & the Muse lend their Renaissance rendition of A Winter Wassail. BlackTape's Chanukkah O Chanukkah brims with dark gothic overtones. For balance, there are a few more-traditional renditions This is the perfect Xmas album to play for friends and family to make the holiday just a wee bit weird.HUH #16: More the work of monks than moshers, the emphasis on spacey, ethereal vocals makes this seem like This Mortal Coil on an eggnog bender, and that's not a bad thing. The prettiest of the lot, this is a beautiful collection of tracks for trimming the tree or burning your own yule log.
