Arcana - The New Light

A record that sums up 10 years of musical creation needs a summary of 10 years of musical history. Peter Petterson, formed Arcana 1994 with idea of creating medieval inspired music. To make the group complete he contacted Ida Bengtsson who thought is was a good idea. Later on Peter works with Stefan Eriksson and Ann-Marie Thim.

During Arcana's 10 year existence they have released 4 full-length albums on Cold Meat Industry. In July 2003 Peter's contract with CMI ended and he decided that in the future he would release all his material on his own label Erebus Odora. 'The New Light' was released July 2004 on Erebus Odora.

'The New Light' is a summary of the 10 years Arcana has existed but it's also a presentation of what we can expect in the future. There are some unreleased demos and alternative recordings that presents the past years. The two last songs are teasers on how the new material is sounding.

The second last track "Through the Grey Horizon" is a very beautiful but it feels a bit sad. "Wings of Gabriel" differs a lot from previous mentioned song since this is an orient inspired song. This is the best song on the CD by the way. I like this very much and hopes that we will hear more songs like this in the future.

The older songs consists mostly of unreleased demos and alternative recordings as mentioned earlier. It feels good to hear good songs in other versions; I think it's interesting to hear the variations. "Eclipse of the Soul" is one of Peters favourite songs become also one of mine favourites.

"Like Statues in the Garden of Dreaming" is one of my old favourites and I had hoped that it was accompanied by "Diadema" or "Lorica Vite" from '... The Last Embrace' album since they are my absolute favourites, and that CD is the best of the older ones.

Even the layout at the digipack is great, typical Arcana, nice and simple. The only thing that I have some complains about is the size of the digipack since it's too big to fit in a regular CD-shelf. It's not only a beautiful outside, it's also a beautiful inside.

This review was written 2004 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2004