It is remarkable how many albums In the Nursery has made with a constant high quality. Their latest work “Engel” again is very agreeable. The music of ITN always has been very filmic, that’s why the brothers Klive and Nigel Humberstone have made various film scores for silent movies. Some ITN tracks have also been used for well-known movies like ‘Interview with the Vampire’. This album too is sort of a soundtrack, but this time not for a movie but for a role playing game called Engel.
The story: Wir schreiben das Jahr 2654. Die Welt, wie wir sie kennen, ist nicht mehr. Der Meeresspiegel ist drastisch gestiegen. Der furchtbare Veitstanz hat alle Erwachsenen dahingerafft. Auf den Trümmern Europas haben die Kinder eine neue Welt geschaffen. Und jetzt, Jahrhunderte später, liegt das Schicksal wieder in ihren Händen. Die dunkle Traumsaat ist über die Erde gekommen, und nur die himmlischen Heerscharen können ihr entgegentreten….”
More about this game can be found at this site. I am not such a gamer so I doubt if I will ever play this game, but the music can be perfectly listened to on its own.
The album starts familiar: ‘New religion’ is a new version of the ITN classic ‘Blue religion’ and more bombastic than ever, with heavy kettledrum and military snaredrums, strings and horns. The next song ‘Beutereiter’ is a new highlight in the ITN oeuvre. It starts as a tragic orchestral hymn, with a female choir in the background, but then it becomes more powerful, accompanied by a nervous flute. The next track, the slow and atmospheric ‘Angelorum’, contains the beautiful voice of Dolores Marquerite C. In total there are only two vocal tracks on the album, the other is ‘Engel – To the Faithful’, another powerful classic that has been re-recorded. If you listen to this album and you know the work of In the Nursery a bit then you won’t be too surprised. All tracks are in their typical filmic orchestral style, sometimes more bombastic, sometimes more atmospheric, like in the subtle track ‘Aftermath’. This album can be ranged on the side of their best early albums, like ‘Sense’ or ‘Duality’. It is also a good introduction to the music of ITN, together with the compilation Exhibit, which was released last year.
You can hear a few extracts of this album on the ITN page on mp3.com.