Album Review : The Dead Sea by Xela

Xela released their 3rd album in 2006 on Type records.

Xela is a multi instrumentalist named John Twells, from Manchester England.

The Dead Sea is a concept album about a doomed nautical voyage. Apparently, zombies live in the ocean and eat entire crews on ships. It's sounds very Ennio Morricone and Goblin inspired.

Nothing about this album really struck me ass bleak or doomed, like it said it was supposed to. It has a very oriental, cinematic feel to it. Lots of strings and weird sounds, odd percuss ions. The orchestration isn't the problem. It's the lack of an effective mood. I don't feel anything when I listened to this.

It was disappointing. Sure, there are strange instruments and sounds on here, all played very proficiently. But it all fell kinda flat to me.

Not the worst avant garde music out there, but nothing all that special. I'd recommend you listen to some Goblin produced soundtracks first, before this.

2/5

Category:

Music

Tags:

• xela
• the
• dead
• sea
• gate
• linseed
• Drunk
• on
• salt
• water
• Creeping
• flesh
• Savage
• Ritual
• Sinking
• Cadavers
• Floating
• Procession
• Briefly
• seen
• Never
• going
• home

[rickyshore]

goblin, huh? it sounds like that? i like to download instrumental music for soundtracks to our videos. a lot of labels claim copyright to music nowadays on youtube, so i try to only use independent artists. nice review!

[YoureWrongImRight]

I got into Goblin after the first time I watched Susperia and the soundtrack amazed me for some reason. I did some asking around and it turns out Goblin is pretty big deal in the underground horror soundtrack scene. Yeah, he makes some cool / weird instrumentals. I really like him.

[theneedledrop]

Holy crap! That's an album cover for the "worst ever" books. Speaking of Wolf Eyes, have you heard the new LP?

[YoureWrongImRight]

I'm not sure. Is it worth checking out ?

[crazyrokk696]

Thanks for the review! I listened to a little of Dead Sea and wasnt impressed...In Bocca al Lupo is better, mainly because it's like a lo-fi procession into darkness, like a haunted house or some shit...what I sampled of the Dead Sea didnt really strike me as true horror though.

[YoureWrongImRight]

I think I just bought this because of the cover and it was in the weird section at Listen Records. I have lots of records that cover what this guy is doing, so it made it less effective. Wasn't scary sounding.

I'll check out Boca after diner !!

[MonMccool123]

This record was discontinued : *-(

[Thargh]

Noted. Very interesting.

[theneedledrop]

I haven't listened to it too hard yet. I'm going to delve into it this week. On some first listens, it doesn't feel too linear or dark; really just noisy as fuck.

[Mortal1Monk]

Kind of reminds me of Kitaro with all the oriental stuff.'

And Kitaro is really happy music, but he has a very strong classic and oriental sound to his music.