PROJECT PITCHFORK DREAM, TIRESIAS! ALBUM CANDYLAND, PRUSSIA, TRISOL RELEASE: FEBRUARY 27, 2009 REVIEW: FEBRUARY 14, 2009

Seeming to go from strength to strength here we are with Germany's Project Pitchfork heralding us with their new work "Dream, Tiresias!". This thing is decidedly up-tempo and unbelievably to the point. Peter Spilles has much to say, he seems to be channeling some true vision here as each track off of this album stands strongly on its own and also flows incredibly almost terrifyingly into the next. Is it real or is it a dream?, Pitchfork appear to be asking this time. "We'll never give up the fight, we'll never give up the fight" announces the sample from track the first "If I Could".

Perhaps Pitchfork got as esoteric as they felt they could with the previous two albums "Kaskade" and "One Million Faces"; they've got the scorching pulse back in their work, it is as though they have picked up the thread begun by "Alpha Omega". Its cold, its precise, its in your face demanding its say. Yet despite such menace, the songs are all tempered in ways this band never could have written in 1995. Songcraft is on display here as never before. The harmonies soar, the choruses somehow are grittier yet through it all beauty shows it's hand fult-tilt. "For instance, our common foe, your evil habit of saying no..." - Spilles demonstrates he's more than willing to call out those in this world who would use it for their own ends, forgetting that the rest of us have to live with the consequences.

In between each song we have an instrumental passage or "dream". And such dreams they are. If you've heard the Jansen/Spilles album "Speedwingsslowthings" you'll fall utterly under this record's spell. If not, for god's sake what are you waiting for. Seamless synthetic textures glide from one second to the next, gently bringing their siren's song just close enough to arouse curiousity.

One more hint (sic), it's the third song "The Tide" which is a wickedly composed song of the bitterest longing. Such heartbreak has not been given prominence in a Pitchfork song before. "Just like waves without you... until our hearts beat as one again..." I have to stop and wearily smile at where this band have taken me over the years. This is simply the most gorgeous song the band have to date committed to disc. It is quite apparent to me that Project Pitchfork were in a victorious mood when they made this one, each new tune a triumph.

PETER MARKS