A Rose for the Dead

This EP, released in 1997, is an addendum to Theatre of Tragedy's second full-length album Velvet Darkness They Fear, released one year prior. It contains six tracks in total. The first two songs are outtakes from the Velvet Darkness sessions. The third track is a newly recorded version of their classic song "Der Tanz Der Schatten", also from Velvet Darkness, with lyrics in English. The EP is completed by remixed versions of two other songs from their 1996 full-length and by a Joy Division cover.

With EPs, singles and compilations, the difficult question is always the same: are they worth the extra purchase if one already owns all the main releases of the band? In this case, the answer is a resounding "yes". There are three reasons why this would make a nice addition to your ToT collection.

First, the two outtakes from Velvet Darkness They Fear are by no means inferior to the material released on that album. In the liner notes the band explains that the reason why they had to leave them out of the 1996 album is that they had run out of studio time and therefore they could not finish recording them. Both tracks would definitely not have disfigured on that album, though. They contain all trademark signs of ToT's sound in that period: slow, doomy guitar riffs, lush string arrangements, and the classic dualism between Liv Kristine's soprano vocals and Raymond Rohonyi's guttural crooning. Moreover, "Der Spiegel" also contains a surprising electronic intermezzo which foreshadows the musical change that the band will initiate in the next few years with the release of their controversial fourth full-length "Musique".

This brings me to the second reason why this is a worthwhile addition to a ToT's fan collection: the two remixes. In the liner notes, the band explains that they were curious to see how their music would be interpreted by artists who were very different from them. Therefore they asked Bruno Kramm of goth-industrial band Das Ich to remix two of their classic tracks from Velvet Darkness, "And When He Falleth" and "Black as the Devil Painteth". Needless to say, these versions are very different from the originals. Electronic beats are added to replace much of the drumming and eerie samples and noises are layered on top of the original instruments. The songs maintain however all their original gloom and doom, and, if anything, they take on a slightly more disturbed tone (listen for example to the growls overlaid to the classic dialogue from the film The Masque of the Red Death on "And When He Falleth"). These two remixes foreshadow the industrial/electro goth turn that the band will take in a couple of albums. As such, they provide an interesting window over ToT's process of metamorphosis, whose roots clearly stretch backwards a few years.

Finally, it's definitely worth listening to the English version of "Der Tanz Der Schatten", here titled "As the Shadows Dance". This is quite different from the original German version. The vocals have been obviously re-recorded in English and there are also some variations in the singing, especially for the male vocals. But the other main difference is that the keyboard parts have been changed quite significantly throughout the song. The organ, and sometimes the piano, replace much of the strings that were used on the original version. The effect is that the song sounds brighter and more lively than the original version. It is also nice to be able to follow the lyrics in English, although I miss the vocal part in German where Liv Kristine sings "Ich liebe dich", that was one of the highlights of that song.

The Joy Division cover does not do much for me. It is a fairly well-done cover, with Raymond's vocals closer to the gothic croon of the original, but it does not add much to ToT's discography. It might have been something more special if Liv Kristine's vocals had been added to it, but according to the liner notes something went wrong in the recording phase and her vocals did not make it on the final tape.

In summary, this is an interesting EP, which nicely complements the release of the Velvet Darkness They Fear album. It sees the band suspended between present and future, maintaining their classic doom/gothic style of the origins, but also experimenting with new industrial/electrogoth sounds, a style that the band will soon embrace in full.