CHANDEEN TEENAGE POETRY ALBUM KALINKALAND RELEASE: MARCH 21, 2008 REVIEW: MARCH 19, 2008

To me, Chandeen have always been the sound of love and depending on your relation to it at the time, your listening experience may vary. The band are literally part of me as I've followed them for the last 14 years, through the thick and thin.

One constant about Chandeen is this: change. After their first two albums ("Shaded by the Leaves" from 1994 and "Jutland" from 1995), the band split apart and came back with 1996's "The Waking Dream" with a new line-up of founding member Harald Lowy, Antje Schultz and Stephanie Harlich. Following up, the band released two more albums with this array: 1998's "Spacerider" and 2002's "Bikes and Pyramids" before slimming down to just Harald and Antje for their last album 2003's "Echoes". A best-of retrospective followed later the same year. Then silence. The party was over. And their passing left a wound, an endlessly bleeding laceration in the musical world.

Now, five years later, Chandeen are back, with yet another new line-up. Lowy is the only original member left and he is ably assisted by Mike Brown musically and Technoir's Julia Beyer vocally. An extremely pretty album this is, the signature Chandeen sound is all there with some excellent vocals from Julia. It's those heavenly washes of modular synthesis I have missed most. The endlessly swaying leaves in fall, your fingers interlaced with your loved one's... this band bring it all out. One by one those leaves tumble to the ground, arcing gracefully around the pair of you under a magnificently austere azure sky. My world depends on you, yes it is ever so true. The band's signature atmospheres have been appreciated much by this reviewer. Their heart-wrenching vocals stand as testament to the enduring allure of their craft.

Chandeen, it has been too long since you were with us, please please don't go running off again. I don't think I can take another five years of silence from you. "And I always know, it's the silent tear running from your eye. And I always feel it's the emptiness growing from inside..."

There will be some fans who just refuse to embrace them again but I, for one, do. I pity you lot who cannot.

PETER MARKS