To adequately describe and wrap into words what LISA GERRARD and her music is about, is almost impossible. Whatever there is to say needs superlatives and a master of breathtaking poetry.
No matter what the Australian lady starts to work on, she creates masterpieces, one after another! Soundtracks, collaborations, solo albums. LISA GERRARD is a visionary, a perfectionist. She is a singer with such incredible voice, voluminous, wide ranging and octaves spanning. LISA GERRARD is the most fascinating and breathtaking performer and for sure unique in this world.
If you know her, than probably most for her soundtracks and soundtrack-like flowing compositions. On her third solo record she goes slightly different paths. I’d say The Black Opal is her first record that really appears to be an album. Songs are more stringent, mostly closed and much more varied, not sound fragments stringed together as she did so often in the past. A plenty of instruments get used despite of her earlier minimalist instrumentations. Guitars, strings, piano and the beloved percussions appear which sound much earthier and more organic now. Of course she does not cut out symphonic and soundtrack-like fragments but only use them as the intro and the both interludes In Search Of Lost Innocence and The Crossing. But LISA GERRARD also gives modern ways a try (All Along The Watchtower), touches even kind of Chanson-like fields as in Black Forrest that owns somewhat of a serene note. And she falls back again on (neo)classic and sacral arrangements (Solace), where she turns into the known cold, distanced and awe-inspiring goddess above. She mostly sings in her own intuitive language but also offers songs in her native language like the enchanting The Dove And The Serpent, which also could be an old British or Irish folk song.
Yes, of course, The Black Opal is a masterpiece again, a hauntingly beautiful piece of breathtaking music. I love it!