SAINT OF THE PIT

Saint of the Pit is the second chapter of Galas' Masque of the Red Death trilogy. It is the most consistent and recommendable album in the series, incorporating more melodic compositions while still maintaining the avant-garde experimentations and terrifying ambience.

It opens with an instrumental modern classical masterpiece. With organs and electronic instruments Galas creates an uncanny atmosphere on La Trezième Revient, it's a storm of slowly weaving dissonant patterns, very abstract and experimental. Exeloume has only Galas' voice and a few electronic percussive effects. It comes close to an Arabian lament, but the expression achieved is chilling, the passion and pain conveyed by Galas' voice is unmatched. Heauton Timoroumenos is more experimental and possibly even more desolate.

The lyrics on the album are mainly taken from the French romantic poets (Baudelaire, De Nerval and Corbière). On Artémis, Galas recites one of those poems over a developing piano, looping around the lower and darker scales of the instrument, not dissimilar from Mussorgsky's most solemn piano works. Also Cris D'Aveugle takes the piano into the scariest corners of the human mind. It is the most impressive and confrontational piece on the album, featuring not only melodic features but also Galas' spookiest ork and troll inflections.

Galas' art is as much about performance as it is about music. Therefore, the music alone, impressive as it may be, will never be a complete experience. This is a lady that you need to see and hear in a live setting, preferably in the hall of a medieval castle notorious for its dungeons and torture rooms. For example in The Gravensteen in Ghent. Warmly recommended!