The Cure Alone

Mehul was the most famous French composer in the time of the Revolution, Consulate and Empire, praised by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Weber and Berlioz, and lauded to the skies by Cherubini, who called Stratonice (the fifth of his 35 operas) “a work of genius, Mehul’s masterpiece”. Nor was he alone in this opinion, since in Paris alone it was performed over 200 times during the next quarter of a century, though withdrawn during the Reign of Terror because of the finale praising royal compassion. The opera – comique only in the sense of including spoken dialogue – is serious in tone (as the grave and dramatic overture presages): based on a classical subject, it tells how Seleucus, King of Syria, engages a doctor (Erasistrate) to cure his son Antiochus’s suicidal depression, which is in fact caused by his love for his father’s fiancee, the Princess Stratonice.

Greek death/doom outfit On Thorns I Lay have been spreading their mournful strain of death/doom since 1992, pausing only for a hiatus after the release of their more rock-oriented album Egocentric. Now active once again, On Thorns I Lay are poised to release their ninth album (and second since the hiatus ended), Aegean Sorrow.

This is an album about insomnia. It is, however, not a proposed solution. Not a cure. It is not something to “help you sleep.” Ours is an affliction not curable by a mere 80 minutes of sounds. If only it were that simple. It is, instead, the tale of a night in that life. Each hour, each step on the path, each milestone in a night that stretches like an eternity while you wish with all your might to make it the blink of an eye it so easily is for the rest of the world. It is the story of the silent struggle… a lifetime's parade of victories and defeats distilled down to a mere matter of hours. The story of memory… the memory of sleep. The calm hypnosis always out of reach, seemingly so readily granted to the rest of the world as you toil alone. One vigil to the next. The story of a night that might as well be an eternity. Each track was recorded in one take at the time of night that bears its name, on nine separate occasions.