Returning of Delerium
Delerium, one of many side projects by Industrial Pioneers Rhys Fulber and Bill Leeb of Front Line Assembly, returns with Chimera a slightly disappointing new album. Chimera stumbles where Delerium’s old albums such as Semantic Spaces and the masterful Karma soared. Bill and Rhys had a winning formula on those albums with blending down tempo electronic dance with tribal percussion and chant and a slight touch of ambient noise. The result was a patient symphony of relaxing music. However, Chimera seems to expand on the one thing that gave them a million selling album worldwide.Karma featured a stunning one time collaboration with Sarah McLachlan called Silence that was easily the most digestible dance music of Delerium’s work at the time. Apparently Rhys and Bill have decided to go full board expanding on this format with Chimera as every song has a female singer on it now and is in a more digestible poppy dance style. Delerium used to spend every moment they needed to bring a song to it’s proper apex and used female singers sparingly and effectively but now the album feels like a forced down tempo album. There are a few shining moments with the vocals of former collaborator Kristy Thirsk and Sixpence None the Richer’s Leigh Nash. All in all though, Chimera is most certainly not the group’s best work.
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