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Old 14 Sep 2019, 03:27 AM   #153
Tsunami
The "e" in e-mail
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown
Posts: 2,329
listening to Devil Doll - "The girl who was... Death"


This band is something special, to say the least. The band was founded by one "Mr Doctor" of whom, other than his real name (which he revealed only more than 20 years after the first Devil Doll came out), nothing is known, there is a big fog of secrecy about his personal life. The band is heavily inspired by old horror movies, resulting in (sometimes over the top) dramatic and dark lyrics.

The band mixes opera, classical music, Slavonic folk music, cabaret/avant garde, gothic rock, rock and metal influences. Typical for them is the length of their songs, their shortest being about 20 minutes in length, their longest well over an hour long. "The girl who was... Death" is just under 40 minutes long, one song with so many sudden changes of genre and structure that it does feel like listening to an entire EP. There is even some Gregorian-esque chanting somewhere around minute 15:30.

The discography of this band is another bizarre element: of the first record only one copy was pressed, which the vocalist keeps in his house. It was never commercially released. Of the second recording, 500 copies were pressed, but only 150 were distributed at a performance, the remaining copies were destroyed by the singer. Some of the band's records have later been re-released on CD though, but that was years after the initial releases with their very limited number of printed records.

Since their last release in 1998 nothing has been heard of the band. Mr Doctor in a rare interview stated he continues to record music, but has lost interest in releasing it commercially or sharing it with the outside world.

Despite their strange artistic visions, I really like this song a lot. The lyrics are a bit over the top, but the unique mixture of genres alone make it a very fascinating piece of music.
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