It's rather ironic that a guy who refused to accept the technology ofemail (which predates Non recordings actually) has released an albummixed in 5.1 surround for compatible high fidelity DVD systems.(Unfortunately, months after owning this, I have yet to experience thehorror in full surround.) Following Non's brightest album, (theunofficial tribute to Phil Spector and girl groups, 'Receive theFlame'), Boyd Rice strays further away from Non's noise roots, yetreturns to a dark sound, roping in grand orchestral and choral samplesto the mix of fire and death. 'Children of the Black Sun' is Rice's alltoo brief aural tour of the underworld, where seven spots highlightvarious mythologies' takes on the darker side of the afterlife and whatkeeps the world cyclic. While the album is potentially rich withfascinating themes, I feel the music is rather undeveloped, far tooshort, and somewhat haphazardly tossed together. Opening with a briefvocal recording, the sound immediately morphs into a heavy drone. Harpsweeps, viola strikes and distant screams additionally color thesoundtrack of "Arka," the place where Cain was exiled to after hisexpulsion from Eden. Without pause, the tour continues on through"Black Sun," where a single note horn drones on in the foreground whilean orchestra holds painfully for resolution it never sees. The tensionworks but the development sounds far from complete. From here, the tourcontinues through five more locations, gliding from track to trackwithout stopping, each incorporating a new set of sounds. The distantmachinery-like noises of "Serpent of the Abyss" subside to fliespicking off tasty morsels on a rotting corpse on "The UndergroundStream," while the echoed choral loops carefully matched with cracklingfire and crashing waves on "The Fountain of Fortune" give way to thealbums closer, the 51-second "Son of the Sun," where a distortedbackwards speech clumsily accompanies an unexciting orchestral loop.(Spin it backwards for extra insult if you really find the need toshell out the cash for 31 minutes of average drone loops.) I could begravely mistaken on the value of this album, since I haven'texperienced the full spectrum, but musically, I'm going to make aneducated guess that the listening experience doesn't get a whole lotbetter. Read More
