MERITSEGER CULT

She who loves the silence. The Cobra-faced Goddess who protects the pharaoh's tombs. She is full of mercy but she will byte an poison whoever will try to enter a tomb. She is Meretseger (or Mertseger).

"She who loves the silence" is also the title of the first, unusually relaxing, track. This goddess is capable of mercy and loving silence means that the dark element of Senmuth's music is initially relegated in the background but grows slowly. Look at the album's cover, you are in a squared while a strong light comes from the top. It's like a regression driven by the harp-like sound. The first step to the darkness, like falling asleep or, for an Egyptian king, the first step into the world of death.

Some percussion introduce "Malkaty Gates". Malqata is "the place where things are picked up", the palace of Amenothep III. The melody is unusual, apparently disconnected. The harp sound is leading the track and the ethnic element remains in the background even if tribal percussions can be heard throughout the whole album as well as the harp. There are some good passages but nothing more.

Google translates the next track as "Beach Ablutions Priestesses". I think that a couple of "of the" put in the right places should make the translation more effective. Rites connected to water and ablutions are present in all the ancient cultures, and the flutes together with the gamelan sounds give this track a sense of ritual enhanced by the chill-out rhythm. Here we are very close to NewAge, if only a thing like "dark newage" could exist.

Google has problems also with the next track. The best that I can do is translating it a "Above the one hundred gates of Thebes". This track is minimalist. Few slow percussions and a string instrument playing sequences of three notes while other instruments and sounds come and go slightly in the background. This track shows the goods and the bads of this album and of most of Senmuth's albums: it can be really enjoyed only if it's associated to images, knowing what has inspired the composition. This is why I indulge so much in Wikipedia researches when coming to Senmuth.

"Whispers in the crypts of Dendera" is one of the darkest tracks of the album even if not too dissimilar from the others. Dendera appears quite often in Senmuth's discography. It's a site famous mainly for the temple of the Goddess Hathor, the Egyptian equivalent of Aphroditi. A good track with an indolent tempo that I would see optimal for a documentary soundtrack.

"Encountering The Solar Boat" despite the title is a descent into the darkness made of minor chords, harp and mandolin (all synthetic, of course) with a final which takes minutes to fade out. Very suggestive.

The album is closed by "Ritual of Loving Silence". The oriental elements make me think more to Greece than to Egypt, but the two civilizations have always had a lot of contact points, even in music. Just think to Demetrio Stratos and Demis Roussous. This track is very repetititve with very few variations. It proceeds hypnotically for over 11 minutes in a way reminding of Tangerine Dream, but the last two minuutes are occupied by a sitar-like sound over a tick-tock of percussions, closer to Vangelis. I would have added the sound of some desert wind to the final, but it would have sounded too Floydian, perhaps.

three solid stars.