вЂњThe Loxian Gate,вЂќ with its thundering drums and airy strings, is the most interesting song on the album, far surpassing the banality that precedes it. The constrained vibrato on вЂњAstra Et LunaвЂќ is a string-backed variant on the same listless, compassionate song style Enya has used for years only this time, due to chord progression, it has a throbbing ecclesiastic connotation. However, the connection between this track and Sark Island (purported source of inspiration), is thoroughly unclear. Titular вЂњDark Sky IslandвЂќ is one of the most amorphous tracks on the album, with humming and instrumentation following one another like two mating birds. ItвЂ™s a sad song about love and loss, sure, but fails to strike the stone heart with nearly as much oomph as some of EnyaвЂ™s 1988 tracks like вЂњOn Your ShoreвЂќ or вЂњExile,вЂќ which exist always down the hall, deeper into the forest, EnyaвЂ™s voice on the precipice of evanescence. вЂњI Could Never Say GoodbyeвЂќ is paced like a church elegy, has a gorgeous backing choir, and focuses heavily on absence, on isnвЂ™t-there-anymore-ness.

Opener вЂњThe HummingвЂ¦вЂќ doesnвЂ™t set the tone as much as call back to WatermarkвЂ™s subtly menacing вЂњCursum Perficio,вЂќ and second track вЂњSo I Could Find My WayвЂќ follows in similar fashion, doing an enervated re-enactment of her magical 2000 track вЂњOnly Time.вЂќДЄt the middle of the album lies вЂњEchoes in the RainвЂќ which finally brings the pace back up, only to stifle its potential by having a lyric sheet littered with inanities. Even as a fan of ambient and chamber music, I believe Enya has surpassed both of those genre classifications вЂ“ Dark Sky Island is, more often than not, as potent as Ambien. That doesnвЂ™t change here, and perhaps this is a problem. And on this particular visit, we must peer inside the pit, and travel 25 years backward to when her seminal work, 1988вЂ™s Watermark, was released, and see what has changed, and what has remained the same.Д®nyaвЂ™s music has always tried to bridge the distance between the imagined and the real, using natural metaphors and theological allusions to augment her reverberant singing. Dark Sky Island sees the 54-year-old Irish singer-songwriter returning once again, in pilgrimage, to the crumbling well of new age ambience. But unlike these natural processes that she so fervently admires, Enya herself refuses to change. ItвЂ™s always there in every sky-scraping star, in every thorny bramble, in every churning ocean tide. She refuses to ignore the pulsating melodrama she witnesses all around her. EnyaвЂ™s first album in seven years is a soft-spoken refusal.

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