Our first two albums are now for sale as mp3s from Emusic.com click here to purchase "To Do More Than God.... To Die". Click here to purchase "Bound To the Wheel".
Ask Mr. Supercult himself, Long Live Death vocalist U.S. Romance, and he'll tell you Long Live Death sounds like Leonard Cohen meeting Current 93. And that's fine and even dandy with us. But it really doesn't do justice to what Long Live Death can pull off when it brings its "A" game. Exactly what that is, though, is difficult to explain. It's a wiggy band. Well, yes. But it's also a curiously Druidic performance troupe, but not really. And it's a tweaked-folk industrial happening, sort of. Whateverthell it is that you do, Long Live Death, keep doing it.(City Paper)
BLOODTEAM.COM
...Luckily came back in time to catch a chunk of Long Live Death, who were totally crazy stomp psych. Loved them. My description that I'm overly proud of is that they're kinda the Andrew WK of psych...you wanna laugh for the first five minutes, but then you figure out that this stuff is realer than you are and get completely caught up in it. (Sam F.)
LONG LIVE DEATH - BOUND TO THE WHEEL
(Secret Eye Records www.secreteye.org )
TERRASCOPE:
Long Live Death play pagan folk music, lit by flickering candlelight, which creeps into your heart, telling secrets and spreading truth. Opening song ‘Awaken ‘ is a perfect statement of intent, calling us to acknowledge our existence and seize our lives back from the mundane. Featuring a strange compelling otherworldly atmosphere throughout, listening to this album is akin to eavesdropping on an occult ceremony, the lyrics weaving strange spells, whilst the music walks through our souls.
Every track features magical arrangements, the percussion full of hypnotic power, as cello’s, guitars, and chanted lyrics blend together into a ritualistic whole, painting pictures of ancient glades and ruined towers. Indeed, the lyrics have been chosen with great care, or so it seems, each word as important as the last, no more so than on ‘Two Voices’ or ‘join us’ which draw us deeper into the ceremony.
By the time we reach final track ‘Of One’ the everyday world will be far behind and you will be filled with a desire to throw of the yoke of reason, and live far inside the ancient forest, howling at the sky and running naked with old gods.
Mesmerising and psychedelic throughout, this is an album for full-moon nights, which has immense power and a fragile beauty in equal measures and will transport you into the timeless realms of the imagination. (Simon Lewis)
UNBROKEN CIRCLE:
It seems the only thing we can truly be sure of is death. However for US band Long Live Death we are suspended in a dream like sleep state whilst alive, tricked into a state of inertia that has to be confronted. For them, death symbolically is a release from this into an awakened existence in which we will truly experience life. I hope that is what they explore on new album 'Bound To The Wheel' as the other interpretation is a more decidedly dark and somewhat unsettling message...They combine rich sounding folk song played on guitar, bowed saw (sounding like a theramin), cello, doom filled percussion and subtle keyboards. The half sung, half spoken lyrics with harmonies in the background envisage Comus with Anne Briggs on backing vocals... (Mark Coyle)
LONG LIVE DEATH - TO DO MORE THAN GOD... TO DIE
(self-released/Secret Eye Records)
BROKEN FACE
Long Live Death's To Do More Than God... To Die is, just as the name suggests, the kind of record which will bring any after party to an abrupt end. Blank stares and silence will probably replace what was once an apartment filled with laughter as soon as the huge percussive march of "There Is No Death" comes through the door. There is something spiritual and communal about this short album that will have people hearing it stop doing whatever they're doing. I actually tried this thesis earlier tonight and it worked right away with a following comment like "what is this!?" Not that it really is that strange but the darkness that comes along with these slowly developing folk-psych meanderings is just astonishing, if not even overwhelming. Cello, flute, gong, musical saw, accordion, bells, violin, melodica and vocals make up something you could call gospel music for "The New Weird America" generation. To tell you the truth it's pretty damn good but the party mood I was in after I got home from work today is long gone. But I can't really say that I mind that too much.
WIRE issue 238:
Opening with the thunderous, Magma-styled boom of Chrisopher Freeland's "big drum", US sextet Long Live Death slowly glide into a chant that makes them resemble The Incredible String Band during their 'Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' heyday... We are treated to wondrously composed, folk-flecked ballads made even more magical by instrumentation that includes cello, accordion, violin, melodica, and saw. Fans of Sunburned Hand of the Man, Double Leopards and the aforementioned ISB will surely find something here to cling onto.(Edwin Pouncey)
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