My review: Eirēnē, Paris Alexander & The Stave Church - Inner Sanctum

 

Eirēnē, Paris Alexander & The Stave Church - Inner Sanctum

When a sensitive soul seeks contact with truth, it can only note, through a laborious mnemonic journey, what it has chosen, experienced and endured, including a mask, inevitably the primary source of secrets and misinterpretations.

The wonderful Eirene writes a frighteningly truthful text for everyone, translating herself and immersing us in awareness, in an enchanting game of rebounds and intuitions, which manifest superiority over what was a concrete block for her new propensity for truth.

To achieve all this, together with her life and musical partner Paris Alexander and Bruce Courtney (better known for his project The Stave Church), she has created a song that mirrors the sky, an exciting shower of sculptural tremors, with her vocal range fluctuating and transporting the music to a territory where the dark hemisphere is found, inevitably forced to draw tepid rainbows, which are the perspective of a text that aims to be sincere and proactive.

A sound base that impregnates fear with its dark electro flashes and unusual rhythmic pauses for Paris, who gives free rein to her creativity here, mixing experience and knowledge to better allow Eirēnē new ways of singing, with vibratos, elongated syllables, in a march with ever-present EBM chromosomes, while at the same time knowing how to translate the epic nature of Baroque music into an electric guise, achieving an incredible level of seduction as a result.

A song with two sides, in which it is wonderful to see how skilfully Bruce has managed to insert himself, marking the whole with his recognisable style. 

After the very first moments, in which Dead Can Dance seem to kick things off, an amniotic electric forest arrives, with skeletal chords and hypnotic black clouds created by superb synth work. 

The words become a dumping ground, a funnel, a stranglehold, and guilt and shame are set in a magnetic flow that leaves no escape. The notes become heavy, dancing like a naive attempt to escape, and the project envisages silent tears set in the glare of the singer's high register, ending up absorbing and swallowing them.

Witnessing a bow, a journey towards choices, both in life and art, is an honour that we must know how to transform: the two British artists and the American artist have done so, with the certainty that in their artistic composition, the true, the false, the dark and the dream of better times have been perfectly connected to an inevitable and desired catharsis, annexing to the pleasure of writing the duty of cleansing the soul.

The music, consequently, was a perfect partner for the lyrical side, making us close our eyes and transporting the dance into the dark corners of our refusal to believe in who we are.

A song like a fan: it refreshes us, but it does not make us forget the difficulties of life.

For this reason, the Old Scribe declares that the trio has written a choral manifesto, pointing the way forward in a captivating manner, freezing time and giving everyone a chance to improve the quality of our lives.

And it is definitely much more than just music...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

28th August 2025

Out tomorrow