Enya - Amarantine
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Music CD Cover
Artist: EnyaEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-11-22
Music Label: Reprise / Wea
Soundtracks:
- Less Than A Pearl
- Amarantine
- It's In The Rain
- If I Could Be Where You Are
- The River Sings
- Long Long Journey
- Sumiregusa
- Someone Said Goodbye
- A Moment Lost
- Drifting
- Amid The Falling Snow
- Water Shows The Hidden Heart
Free Music Notes for Amarantine
Free Music Review: Amarantine - An Enya masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
`Amarantine' has all the hallmarks of a typical Enya masterpiece. Even the track order isn't a random selection but thought had been put into the actual track order. It alternates between the slower pieces, mid-tempo and fast pieces. Creating a variety to the listener, be they serious fans or casual listeners, a track order that reminds us of `Watermark', Enya's masterpiece that she unleashed upon the world in 1988.
3 tracks are sung in a fictional language, devised by Roma Ryan, Enya's lyricist, based partly on the sounds Enya would vocalise while she worked on a melody. Roma's contribution shows through the use of symbols for the Loxian alphabet and groundwork for a proper grammar. The 3 Loxian tracks are in `Less than a Pearl', `The River Sings' & `Water Shows the Hidden Heart'. This time the languages used are more esoteric and exotic than ever.
This time Enya's multi-vocals are still evident especially in the background harmonies that enrich the chorus, intros and outros. What is new is that her main vocals are much clearer and stronger, compared to previous releases, whereby layering and multi-tracking had to a certain extent distorted the crispness of the lead vocals. In `Amarantine', fans hear both the clear lead vocal and multi-layered signature harmonies.
If ever there are albums that you can tell from first listen based on 30 second samples that they are good albums, that stand to repeated listen, `Amarantine', joins their ranks.
LESS THAN A PEARL
An opening track typical of Enya style, instrumental and vocals. Usually as a personal preference I take time to like a particular opening track. But `Less than A Pearl' has the pulling power of `The Memory of Trees', that propels me to pay attention at the first chord. After the burst of `high-haah' sighs at the chorus, I am convinced that it is a good track, it is more subtle than the majestic `the Memory of Trees' but no less in terms of melody.
AMARANTINE
A style that is redolent of `Only Time', it is Enya , working on a hooky pop song with universal lyrics. The melody may draw many at first listen like myself, and for others it may take a little longer. Although it reminds me of `Only Time' the high chorus owes more to a church choral hymn than a pop song. As a song, I like it much more than `Only Time' which took me awhile to really like.
IT'S IN THE RAIN
If one listens to the instrumentation and vocal arrangement, it's like `China Roses' meets `Wild Child'. It has the steady pace of `China Roses' but the chorus, infuses it with the elation and emphasis of `Wild Child'. The track ends on a sober note. This piece is best appreciated late at night or during quiet moments to yourself, where you are able to pick out the instrumentation besides Enya's main vocals. Lyrically I'd have preferred something other than `rain' with `again' as its rhyme choice. I have come across criticisms of its lyrics but Roma is making sense in `leaves on tress whispering, deep blue sea's mysteries. It isn't teenage poetry as some will suggest. If you think of it this way...when rain hits the trees, the droplets tell the leaves its origins from the deep blue sea. Rain takes its droplets from everywhere and the most common source is a large body of water, such as the sea.
`Hear my name, in the rain', isn't that strange. How many of us have heard our names on a stormy night as the winds howled through shutters? Can the rhythm of rain not call our names? It isn't that far fetched. It is best listened and taken with a sense of wonderment, then the song really talks to one's soul. `Of the sky as it cries', it's obvious as an allegory of rain.
IF I COULD BE WHERE YOU ARE
This track can easily be traced and relate it to `On Your Shore', `Na Laetha Geal M'oigé', `Smaointe' and such. Melancholy and tuneful, it is moving. Composition wise, it is far more engaging than the other mentioned Enya tracks from previous albums. I can hear those delicate synthesised strings which were evident in `Pilgrim' and `May It Be'.
THE RIVER SINGS
Easily the dynamic cousin of laidback instrumental `River' from `Watermark', `The River Sings' is a masterfully executed fast paced Enya track. Melodically, with its painstaking multi-tracked harmonies and counter harmonies weaving in and out of the main melody(wait till the last few stanzas for a real harmony surprise), it wins the listener over, dynamically it spares no effort with its complementary percussion and sound effects. It is indeed more emphatic in its percussion and short syllables in Loxian, compared to the Latin `Cursum Perficio'. It easily passes off as a 21st Century track meant for the dance hall, with its pounding resemblance to techno and fast paced chanting, but its artfulness are many notches above plain electronica or techno. This catchy tune will have listeners put this song on repeat quite a fair bit. It harks back to the relentless percussion work in `Storms in Africa', `Book Of Days' and `Ebudae'. Lyrically, if one read the English equivalent of the fictional Loxian language, it is typical Roma Ryan style. Questions, sometimes repeated phrases, the themes of distance, space and eternity.
LONG LONG JOURNEY
I was smitten at first listen, just like the previous track. Radio friendly length, catchy hook, a pop track with the flavour of a hymn, it wins even a casual listener over. If ever there is a complaint that I have, it will be the small vocalised bit between stanzas. They should have been infused with lyrics or lyrical sighs. The snare drums and its soaring chorus lends it an epic-like feel. The little vocalisation at the end, is just perfect!
SUMIREGUSA(Wild Violet)
Originally made as a commissioned song for Japan's Panasonic Corporation, first previewed as a streaming audio track at www.enya.com, the previewed version was much shorter, just a teaser. This full length version captures the hidden main course, that delights. I am particularly intrigued by the echoes at the bridge before the elongated sighs and the final stanza. Although based on the techniques first employed in `La Sonadora' and later in `Isobella', `Sumiregusa' stands on its own with its own personality.
SOMEONE SAID GOODBYE
The start hints at a melancholy song, but it changes tack swiftly enough. Delivered with a slap happy pace of `One By One', `Someone Said Goodbye' can easily be `One By One(Part2)', in terms of theme & synthesised strings. Once again, if there ever is any complaint, it's the vocalised portion that can do with a little extra lyrics. Hooky chorus, it's a pop track with the Enya signature sound and delivery.
A MOMENT LOST
It has the hymn influence of `Once You Had Gold' with the poignancy of `Fallen Embers'. If there's ever sweetness in melancholy, then `A Moment Lost' is it. Arguably the best non typical radio hit material on the album, it holds up to repeated listen, with its achingly beautiful melody and heartfelt rendition. Anyone who has ever said a word in anger to another or anyone who has lost/hurt or been hurt by someone you care about will be able to relate to it.
DRIFTING
The spirit drifts in a dreamlike trance. Appreciated according to the track order, `Drifting' is a good break between the intensity of `A Moment Lost' and the wistfulness of `Amid the Falling Snow'. It may not receive the appreciation that it should, partly because the overall brilliance of the other tracks outshine it. On its own it is a decent enough Enya instrumental, far more superior than the repetitive `The Promise'.
AMID THE FALLING SNOW
It captures a private wistful moment of recollection. In the snow and moonlight glow, thoughts return to winters past. It can easily pass off as a Christmas song, melody wise and lyrically. Those watching the fireplace in the cold of winter and those watching the falling snow from their rooms on a moon swept winter night , can easily relate to this piece.
WATER SHOWS THE HIDDEN HEART
An epic story delivered in fictional Loxian language, in the style of a choral hymn. This is just the type of instrumental and voices track that Enya must've envisioned on making from the early days of her career. It's complexity rivals `The Memory of Trees', while the melodic harmonies achieved here make Enya's early pieces of the same genre, although beautiful, elementary compared to this feast of sounds. Listening to this piece lifts the spirit. The album ends on a high note.
For the casual listener if you are not a fan, this album is recommended. If you are already an Enya fan, there is every reason to buy this album.
As a fan I considered `The Memory of Trees' as a superb album despite the release of `Paint the Sky With Stars'. When `A Day Without Rain' was released, in my heart's judgement I consider it equal to `The Memory of Trees'. With `Amarantine', Enya has outdone herself, at a time when people were wondering if Enya could top the exquisiteness of her own composition, `May It Be'.
Amarantine Poster
The first album in five years from Enya follows the biggest-selling album of her illustrious career, the six-times platinum A Day Without Rain, which transcended all commercial expectations. Having sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, Enya is one of the most successful female artists of all time and second only to U2 as the biggest selling Irish artist in history.From the first blanket of choral voices awash in reverb, Amarantine is instantly recognizable as a product of Enya, the Irish chanteuse who has created a genre unto herself. Although it's been five years since her last CD, on Amarantine it's as if time stood still. The triumvirate of Enya, lyricist Roma Ryan, and producer Nicky Ryan work the formula they perfected on Watermark, layering her voice in lush choirs pushed along by pizzicato synth strings, swooning orchestral pads, and harpsichord arpeggios. On tracks like "Less Than a Pearl" and "Drifting," Enya flirts with a timeless sound born in gothic chants and hymns. The former is one of three songs that she sings in Roma Ryan's fictitious language of Loxian. It seems to free her, especially on "The River Sings," a veritable rave-up where she gets the tribal choir going in the style of Scottish mouth music. But to get there you have to slog through slo-mo ballads that manage to be dirge-like and singsong at the same time, like the Carpenters on Quaaludes. The relatively restrained arrangement of "It's in the Rain" almost attains a folk-like simplicity that Enya hasn't experienced since she sang with her siblings in Clannad a quarter-century ago. Amarantine sounds like it was born in cloistered solitude, self-referentially echoing Enya albums past. --John Diliberto
More Enya
 The Celts |  Watermark |  Shepherd Moons |
 The Memory of Trees |  A Day Without Rain |  Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya |
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