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20 July 2007

Enigma - “The Screen Behind the Mirror” Review

It begins with a female voice intoning astronomical statistics.

It becomes one of the single greatest albums ever recorded.

It ends leaving you starving for more, desperate to replay, stunned by what has just transpired. It’s Enigma’s 4th album, and it’s as close to perfection as Michael Cretu, the sole writer/composer of Enigma, may ever get.

Carl Orff’s masterful opera “Carmina Burana”, and particularly the piece “O Fortuna”, forms the leitmotif of The Screen Behind the Mirror, sometimes blasting full-force like a Gothic cathedral being upended and thrust headfirst through your speakers; and sometimes retreating to a tiny whisper in the corner of your mind. Always, the drama and passion of that piece is reflected in the sounds it finds itself wrapped around. Opener “Push the Limits” has all the right elements in all the right places, and is a textbook example of what Worldbeat should be: sexy, sophisticated, danceable, and deliciously ethnic without ever feeling cheap. And then there is “Gravity of Love”, a soaring, stirring meditation on life and purpose: when “O Fortuna” filters through the intoxicating percussion, descending like a flight of Valkyries onto dusky desert, you’d swear Orff’s opera was meant for this alone.

The brilliance keeps flowing. Of particular note is the rock-based “Modern Crusaders” and (completely bizarre, half-backwards) “Camera Obscura”, featuring Cretu’s own vocals and phenomenal guitar work, as well as rock juxtapositions of Carmina Burana that, again, are in impeccable taste. Likewise, the unusual “Traces (Light & Weight)” uses the sound of a match and a drop of water as percussion, to surprising and ethereal effect. Tying all these disparate elements together is visceral, muscular percussion, growling deeper than you knew you could feel, rippling in dark brushstrokes across the album and culminating (at least for me) in perhaps the most singly beautiful track, “Endless Quest”. If the previous disc, “Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!” was supposed to represent water, this is earth-- make that a desert! This is not the Enigma you’re used to-- it’s heavier, richer, and a lot more grounded (if you’ll pardon the pun).

Never does an element become too excessive or a track too predictable. Each is fresh and unique, clearly related but clearly evolving. Unlike every other Enigma album before or since, nowhere is there a “bad track” or “filler”. Even the simplest instrumentals (”Endless Quest”) are assembled with such soul, such passion, as to be essentially incomparable. It is clear, at least to me, that Cretu truly loved creating this disc.

I can safely say that MCMXC was the first time I ever felt anything when listening to music--I was embarassingly young, but that feeling has stuck with me: andThe Screen Behind the Mirror is like having that experience all over again.

My only wish, as always, is for Cretu’s vocals to disappear, as they’ve never (and still don’t) appeal to me; but here, somehow, they add something unique to the mix that would never have been achieved otherwise. While much of this album is somewhat lighthearted (it isn’t called “New Age” for nothing), there exists a rawness, hidden beneath the sheen of this perfectly-balanced and calibrated mix, that threatens to force its way out at every turn; Cretu--and the singers of “O Fortuna”--channel that primal instinct with astounding fluency. There is a wolf hidden among us. And nowhere do we become more aware of it than the transition into “Silence Must Be Heard”, where a quiet instrumental suddenly becomes the very basis for the loudest, sexiest, most passionate track on the album. And for old times’ sake, as the roaring subsides, we hear the “Enigma theme”, kept intact since 1990 (MCMXC), reminding us as clearly as an emblem that yes, this is still an Enigma disc. What a trip! Considering its near-flawlessness, and considering the relatively weak work that has come from the band since, I have no issue considering this album the definitive Enigma masterpiece.

The Screen Behind the Mirror runs a lean and exciting 43 minutes.

My Rating: 10 out of 10 -- Enigma’s best, less ethereal than previous work and more exciting by far.

Available from Amazon and
Enigma - The Screen Behind the Mirror
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