Delerium — Morpheus

Originally released in 1989 Morpheus was the second album from Delerium. It found the Canadian two-piece offering up a varied ten album, which moved from dark ambience, brooding to slightly ethnic tinged electronica, light electro-industrial, and more beat bound score like fare. Here on Metropolis Records is a recent CD reissue- which adds in five bonus tracks.
 

The CD comes presented in a very bare-bones four-panel digipak. This features a monochrome picture of a grey alien/ creepy cherub-like face (on the fount cover), and a downturned stone face statue ( inside gatefold). Sadly, we get no details/ background about album, original recording details, or info on the bonus track – all we get is a track listing on the back…as I said very bare-bones!.
 
Delerium started in the year 1987, and was the more atmospheric electronic/ moody instrumental project from the electro-industrial/ EBM project Front Line Assembly. It brought together Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber- with the band to date having fourteen full-lengths to its name, with the last of these being 2016’s Mythologie.
 
The album opens with the chopping ‘n’ snaking electro beats, synth stabs, and later slightly eastern promise harmonics of “Gaza”. As we go on, we come to the eerier title track, which moves between moody synth string darts with bass brooding purrs, onto rising synthetic choirs and light keyboard darts. And there’s the taut bass synth punch meets snapping beat work of “Veracity”.

As we move into the second half of the CD, we have malevolently jaunting synthetic string stab meets cascades key and murkily sinister sample sea of “Somnolent”. There’s the tip-top ethnic rhythm come grooving synth bass chop of “Allurance” which later adds in neat world music tight vibe like hits. The nostalgic IDM bright melody meets the buzzing bass of “Brave”, and the swirling dark ambient drift and build of “Embryo”- these last two tracks are part of the five bonus tracks.

I’ve been a fan of Front Line Assembly since the mid-1990s- so I was of course aware of this spin-off project, but Morpheus is my first taster of Delerium- and I must say I’m impressed by this varied and largely consistent album. It’s just a bit of a pity there couldn't have been a bit more effort done with the packaging, with maybe an inlay booklet, or at least a bit more track detail. Small criticism aside, if you enjoy moody-yet-varied electronica then Morpheus will certainly be of interest.