The Serpent's Egg

The Serpent's Egg
Studio album by Dead Can Dance
Released	24 October 1988
Genre	Neoclassical dark wave
Length	36:15
Label	4AD
Producer	Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerrard, John A. Rivers
Dead Can Dance chronology
Within the Realm of a Dying Sun (1987) The Serpent's Egg (1988) Aion (1990)

The Serpent's Egg is the fourth studio album by Australian musical act Dead Can Dance. It was released on 24 October 1988 by record label 4AD.

Background

The album was the last produced while Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard were a romantic couple. A majority of the album was recorded in a multi-storey apartment block in the Isle of Dogs, London.

Perry discussed the album's title: "In a lot of aerial photographs of the Earth, if you look upon it as a giant organism—a macrocosmos—you can see that the nature of the life force, water, travels in a serpentine way".^[1]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. 

Side A
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Host of Seraphim"	6:18
2.	"Orbis de Ignis"	1:35
3.	"Severance"	3:22
4.	"The Writing on My Father's Hand"	3:50
5.	"In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings"	4:12

Side B
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Chant of the Paladin"	3:48
2.	"Song of Sophia"	1:24
3.	"Echolalia"	1:17
4.	"Mother Tongue"	5:16
5.	"Ullyses"	5:09

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]

In a retrospective review, AllMusic said, "Perry and Gerrard continued to experiment and improve with The Serpent's Egg, as much a leap forward as Spleen and Ideal was some years previously", heaping particular praise on the album opener "The Host of Seraphim", which it called "so jaw-droppingly good that almost the only reaction is sheer awe".^[2]

In other media

"The Host of Seraphim" was used in the climax to the 2007 film The Mist.^[3]

Release history

Country	Date
Australia	24 October 1988
United States	2 February 1994

Personnel

• Lisa Gerrard – vocals, production on tracks 3–6, 8 and 9
• Brendan Perry – vocals, hurdy-gurdy, production, sleeve design
• Andrew Beesley – viola
• Sarah Buckley – viola
• Tony Gamage – cello
• Alison Harling – violin
• Rebecca Jackson – violin
• David Navarro Sust – vocals

Technical

• John A. Rivers – co-production on tracks 1, 2, 7 and 10
• Vaughan Oliver – sleeve design (with Brendan Perry)

References

1. "dead-can-dance.com". dead-can-dance.com. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
2. Raggett, Ned. "The Serpent's Egg – Dead Can Dance : Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
3. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0212596/

External links

• The Serpent's Egg information at the band's official website
• The Serpent's Egg at MusicBrainz (list of releases)
• The Serpent's Egg on YouTube