The Chronicles of Life and Death product reviews

There are not many albums that I find have 15 tracks that I really connect with. This is the only one I have come across in the last 8 years, ever since my first encounter with Sisters of Mercy.

I put the CD into the stereo, waited while it coped with the Copy Control protection (old stereo, it doesn't really like CC protection most of the time, but it liked this one, and I am grateful for that.) and hit PLAY.

The first track, an instrumental piece titled Once Upon a Time, really caught me by surprise. I don't know exactly what it was about the track, but it really perked up my ears and focussed my attention firmly upon it.

Then on rolled track 2, the title track. This would have to be my favourite song for sure! I love the line "These are the stories of our lives, as fictional as they seem." It brought to mind a friend of mine who I last saw many years ago. His favourite commentary was that we really must be blind not to see all the cameras. He was 100% certain that we all live in the biggest, wierdest, wackiest Reality TV show of all time. What scared him the most was the thought of who, or what, the audience was. In a way, I kinda feel the same some days, so this song really did appeal to me on many levels.

The album as a whole is stunning, and the dedication on the back page of the CD insert says it all really. Quoting from that dedication... "We would like to find the perfect words to show how sincerely grateful we are to each and every one of you and I'm not sure if we ever will. We do hope you can feel it in each of these songs..." Well guys, I don't know about anyone else, but I did. Thank YOU for the stunning music. The songs reached inside of me and really grabbed something and gave it a new outlook on life.

The artwork on the CD insert is wonderful, reminding me of a comic series about a character called Johnny. Not as nasty a storyline as the comic, but I really enjoy the little feeling buried in every image. Billy is a very talented young man, both with his musical and artistic talents.

I was also interested to find that this album was released in two flavours, the Life version and the Death version. Slightly different artwork for each version, but most importantly the 15th track is different on each... "Falling Away" for the Life version, and "Meeting my Maker" for the Death version. Good marketing ploy guys. :)

Overall, stunning... but you might have guessed that from the score. If you want an album FULL of QUALITY songs that tell stories and really 'talk' to you... this is the album you NEED to buy.