ELEND prelistening and top-ratings of "A World In Their Screams"

At http://www.prophecyproductions.de/streams/elend-stasis.m3u a pre-listening of "A World In Their Screams" (to be released 23.4.2007) , which already by now is praised as the best ELEND album ever, is possible. Top ratings like 10/10 points in Orkus (D) and 15/15 points in Legacy (D) underpin this estimation.

Ever since their inception, ELEND have inhabited an exceptional musical place. Instrumentally lodged somewhere between Classical orchestral music and serious avant-garde music of the 20^th century and at the same time filled with the dense atmosphere and accessibility of a band like Dead Can Dance and the violence of extreme metal, this French-Austrian ensemble have been forging an individual synthesis from the techniques of serious music and the catchiness and straightforwardness of popular forms of music.
"A World In Their Screams" is the third part of the "Winds" cycle that has been begun in 2003 with "Winds Devouring Men" and was continued in the following year with "Sunwar The Dead." More than 30 musicians and singers have contributed to the massive soundscapes of the album, in its most extreme moments exceeding the denseness of all their previous works. Even though "A World In Their Screams" was conceived as a very extreme album, during its three-year development - a first version had been composed around the time of the album "Sunwar The Dead" - this record aspired to ever more radical dimensions, eclipsing ELEND's whole discography in its raw violence and oppressive atmosphere.
In its musical superlatives, the result finally rendered the original concept of the cycle obsolete. Hence, "A World ..." marks the premature finale of this series of albums - an exceedingly dramatic ending at that. And this leaves one question unanswered: how to follow up on such an album anyway?