THE HILL OF CROSSES

This is the 4th successive album from the 1990s/early 2000s that I am reviewing from this dark folk project, and the pattern seems to be a superb outing if not outright classic to disappointment and back. In such a repeating series, "The Hill of Crosses" would be a setback, and it is, though not quite as weak as "The Blade" a few years earlier. It's the first of the quartet without an absolute short circuit the dashboard track but mostly compensates with "German Requiem" and its horn accents; the string and 12 string dominated "Black Dawn"; the feminine enhanced and haunting "Eve" and the almost pastoral (in spite of the title) "The Street of Many Murders"; and the ominous title track. Unfortunately, most of the rest is again overly repetitive and stilted, notwithstanding the continued vocal support which Mr Wakeford's range simply begs for like a kidnapped victim on the phone utterly failing to sound like everything is hunky dory, I am slowly concluding that even a lesser SOL INVICTUS is worth listening to while the best is not quite the stuff of personal crucifixes.