The Last Dance - Once Beautiful

The Last Dance surprised the world with their goth-rock'ish darkwave back in 2003 when they were supporting act for Crüxshadows during their US-tour. That was then and now The Last Dance is a big name even though they still haven't reached The Crüxshadows reputation yet, not in Sweden anyway.

The last two years I've listened to this bands debut album 'Whispers in Rage' and their following EP 'Reflections of Rage' many times a week and I can at least say that I've been longing for the day that their new full-length album would leave the printers in Philadelphia and begin their long journey to Gothenburg. My big worry were if I would get disappointed or not when I heard the new material, but to my big joy the shills of prosperous stroke me at the same time as my girlfriend pressed play on the stereo.

For those out there who have heard 'Whispers in Rage' will defiantly recognize themselves during their journey through 'Once Beautiful' without the feeling that you've heard it before. It feels new and fresh, but at the same time you recognize the way that the band does their guitar loops, the jargon of the keyboards and most of all the beautiful lyrics.

If I would list all the great tracks on this album I easily could copy and paste the track list from this record since every song is smoking hot. But I won't mention them all, instead I would like to highlight the following tracks: "Distancy", "Once Beautiful", "Secrets", "World Down", "Special Little Gift" and "Desperately Still" that you also will be able to find on the bands EP 'Reflections of Rage'.

"Still Beautiful" is a more fitting name for this album.

This review was written 2005 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2005