Dark Ages feels like being in a deep dungeon of some citadel fortress in Purgatory. Beautiful dark sounds permeate your ear drums and beat a subtle soundscape of darkness upon ye who dare to listen. Even more daring not just to listen, but question. Even if your pitiful existence locked away in some stinking hole of Hell itself is all you've got, and a lot of people have so much more, who you are and what is the point of your life even being in existence. Imagine a world where that was the best a person could do, what kind of a Hell would that be? Addiction is real nice, very much full of motion, after all desire does not desire satisfaction, desire desires desire. That's the kick after all. Wanting it becomes more than the actual having it, when control is lost. Sometimes that's fun, sometimes it's another form of Hell itself, all-consuming, all-pervasive, all your life revolves around. It sounds like a pact with the devil, and stories of old tell of an anal pact being the most difficult one to escape. As long as I don't get my head stuck up mine, I'm happy with it for the most part. Truly diabolic in nature. Lovely stuff. Sturm And Drang, I will say graces us with its tonal dramaturgy. Tantalising the senses with all manner of practised moves. The Mad Arab, and to be honest I'm not surprised, every reason to be. It was only a wedding party, not overly threatening unless too much has been imbibed and its own theatricality getting out of hand a bit, but surely. The Mad Arab could be so variously interpreted, even the ones that get handed over for a hanging. What part of Hell does he endure, or has he escaped it, at worst temporarily stuck in limbo. Very provocative. Crown Of Thorns, the Christians ultimate sacrificial lamb to the proverbial slaughter. Suitably respectful of its darker side, what really went through a mans mind in that state of existence. Did he really die with love in his heart? Which brings us to the Burning Man, the one who fell into the flames and became at one with his new element, hell bent on destruction. But with fire comes light and life to the night. He strikes again, and again, because that is our lot. Spiritual persecution is fully deserved the way we don't keep our room tidy. We live in such a messy planet, full of blood, gore and bodily fluids leaking from shocked corpses and other various parts. The light-bringer illuminates our suffering and the majority shy away and pretend it never happened/happens, some cry to God and ask why. They aspire, churchlike a spire, towards the perception of heaven being upwards, when at one time it was just part of the unknown. Now we know it isn't where we thought it was, so we add another dimension and make it invisible. Brilliant track. Towards the light. The Lost Ones, shocked from their earthly existence by situations beyond most people's comprehension, let alone knowledge, wandering through the aether, aimlessly, wondering what happened. The conscience no longer a matter for their conjecture, for they are lost and understandably upset for the most part, I shouldn't wonder. The music floats majestically and beautifully embodying the essence of an existence, a new sense of being in limbo. As for the Dream Sequences, the first retains the elemental planes atmosphere and tinkers with it. Are the people, that we don't recognise in our dreams, the wandering souls of the dead, do they try to contact us, taking us through their last steps in a quest for understanding of why their sense of being is stuck in that everlasting last few sequences of life? And then do we grumble because we are five minutes early, time for a few more minutes. The second is darker. Maybe the more bloody or painful or degrading. The more traumatic. Prolonged agony or humiliation, for all eternity damned to suffer there last moments. No wonder the planet is in pain. And here it is, Suffering and Sorrow. That inescapable but unendurable state of being. But not only with the spirits but with the remainder, the residue of trauma as a wound to be born silently as well as literally. How do you give a child their legs back after they've been unfortunate enough to stand on a mine. Probably even one of their own, but bought from the same place anyway. How futile death becomes when its at such a wasteful cost of money as well as, and more importantly measured in terms of death and injury. The ending of a life a meaningless guess at the estimation of cost in munitions expenditure and manufacture. Forbidden is a transgression in musical form, profound sound. Again like the former tracks retaining that atmosphere of desolation. The boundary has been transgressed and continues to be done. A least I know when the track will end, as it beautifully wraps you up in its moralistic silk, ready for digestion at a later date. Just don't get leaving it too long, otherwise it will be too late. When was that date again?) How to rebuild an album that has made me so glum with a hatred for the atrocities of this world that continue incessantly. New administrative buildings to incorporate some sense of democracy, or maybe just a more permanent fortress to fight from. I know the UDR had them at one time, but they don't seem to be needed any more. I guess that's one terrorism out of the way, so thanks America, at least for that small mercy. But this music takes me to other more exotic places. Well, they used to be. Interesting people... kill them. Then back to the fort, but mind the wet cement, we are swimming in it. And as for that razor wire... And so, to cope with the fatigue of battle and the screaming spirits in my head, and what with plucking my own feathers out the best they can do is Haldol. Just to calm the conscience that will pickle a man's brain in a Hell of it's own doing. Make sure you keep your distance or the karma will rub off. Pretend it's all a video game. A fantastically inspiring album of Hell in a dream of Hells, or were they Hells in a dream of Hell. Either way, we are in deep.