People tend to know Delerium from their more recent electronic music. I'm not going to hammer the new direction the musical group has taken as I do enjoy a few of the songs off of their 2000's albums, but I have to say I prefer the dark, ambient, instrumental early albums in their catalog. From their ambient early work, this album is probably my favorite.
This is their first release. If you're not big on ambient music, you'll probably not be too interested in Delerium's early work. The record as a whole is dark, brooding, eclectic, and mesmerizing. The songs on this release are almost entirely instrumental with very little in the way of vocals. A couple of the songs have sparse samples of various (religious?) chanting. There are some Eastern and Arabian influences sprinkled throughout. There's a bit of industrial influence on some of the songs as well. There are slight differences in the track listing depending on which version of the album you purchase. The one I received was the re-release from the early 2000's. The re release omitted Hidden Mask, but included Dark Star. Both are excellent tracks. It's unfortunate that the re release omitted Hidden Mask.
Standouts from the record for me are Dark Star, Inside the Chamber, Hidden Mask, and Strangeways. Certain Trust is probably the "busiest" of the songs. Dark Star sounds a bit out of place when compared to the other tracks, but it's my favorite nonetheless.
The combined songs Subvert/Wired Archives/Siege of Atrocity are a bit much for me. I probably would have liked them more had they were separated. The first song, Subvert, is quite nice. The triple hitter in its entirety is almost 20 minutes. By the time I get to Siege of Atrocity, I usually just want to skip to Dark Star.
I'm a big fan of Delerium but not this CD. I felt that the group has lost its 'New Age' way with this project. To be more polite, they have gone in a totally different direction. The music, in my opinion, lacks melody & harmony, and lacks the ambient sounds so typical in their earlier efforts. My favorite Delerium are Karma, Poem, Chimera. Sorry to offend the raters who are obviously more inspired. I'll keep playing it; maybe something on the CD will eventually catch my interest.