Released
1998

Label
Mystique Records

Reviewed by
S. Glitsos

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The Last Dance

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The Last Dance

Last Edit/Update
02 October, 1999

The Last Dance

Staring At the Sky
(Do You Believe in Singles?)

Track Listing

1. Do You Believe in Angels (Euro-Dance Mix)
2. Flesh
3. Mystery
4. Do You Believe in Angels (Falling Star Mix)
5. Inside (Kane Mix)
6. War (Betty's Page Mix)
7. Do You Believe In Angels (Violet's Song-Piano)
8. Do You Believe in Angels (Screaming Kitty Mix)

To answer the question posed in the sub-title of this CD: yes. Singles are great, especially when they provide otherwise unheard of mixes of songs, new material, and in general good stuff.

But this is ridiculous.

I don't say ridiculous because there's a lot of material presented here. 8 tracks is a fair-sized single, considering most of the tracks are remixes. But I am not exaggerating when I say that the tracks on this sound too similar to really listen to.

The single starts off with a Euro-Dance mix of  "Do You Believe in Angels." It's synthpoppy, it's definitely dancey, and actually should be playing in the CD player of a 12 year old girl who just watched The Crow for the umpteenth time that day. To their credit, however, the vocals are nice. They unaffect by effects and are actually tonal -- but that's not really a surprise considering the overall gothiness of the Last Dance (check their back catalogue at their website -- melodramatic). That pretty much sums up the entire disc, actually, up until track five, even though it goes through two songs that aren't remixes of "Do You Believe in Angels" -- "Flesh" and "Mystery," which are apparently new songs. Tracks five and six are remixes of previous songs.

On "Inside (Kane mix)," there's a little change in the overall mood of the song from the rest of the CD, towards aggression, although the gothy vocals sort of ruin the atmosphere. The next remix, "War (Betty's Page mix)" exercises cheesiness to the max with a sample from the beloved sample whore "Full Metal Jacket:" "You will be a minister of death!" screams the drill seargent. A little more aggression, but the vocals diminish it again, and by the end of the song, it's a touchy-feely dance song. Track seven yields us a severe break from the norm: Tori Amos. Perhaps that's hyperoble: Tori Amos pulls it off, while this "remix" of "Do You Believe in Angels" merely sounds like a last ditch attempt to round out the sound of the single (I mean, come on. You've got dancey stuff, you've got "aggression"--heh. What's missing? Tears!).

The last track on this CD (which was recieved with as much of a party as I could muster after listening to everything else on the CD), the "Screaming Kitty Mix" of "Do You Believe in Angels," sounded mostly like Leaether Strip -- except it has the same vocals as the first remix. Meh!

I may not have enjoyed this CD because I'm not a die-hard The Last Dance fan -- perhaps investing in a full length album would be a wiser choice. Else you're probably just going to be waiting for the CD to be over.