Heavenly Bodies - Celestial

With a name like Heavenly Bodies and an album title like Celestial, it's easy to draw a bead on the group's sound before the shrink-wrap even comes off the record. This is indeed lush, ethereal music, crafted by a trio of 4AD alumni: Scott Rodger and James Pinker were in the original incarnation of Dead Can Dance, while Caroline Seaman was one of the featured vocalists on the second This Mortal Coil album, Filigree and Shadow. With all those connections and sounding very much like the sum of all its parts, you’d expect Heavenly Bodies to be signed to 4AD. Close, but you’d be wrong. Signed to C’est La Mort in the US and Third Mind Records in Europe and the UK, Celestial is a very classy one album and done release. The album has a weird gimmick of having an instrumental song between every song with vocals. This just makes it seem a little predictable and contrived when there’s no reason these fully formed instrumentals shouldn't have vocals, they're not any different from the album compositionally, with the exception of Cavatina which is a great ambient piece.

Ripped from the extended 1990 C’est La Mort CD release to MP3

Heavenly Bodies; Celestial

1.      Intro

2.      Rains On Me

3.      An Obsession

4.      Time Stands Still

5.      The Icon

6.      Stars Collide

7.      Road To Maralinga

8.      Shades Of Love

9.      Cavatina

10.   Sender Luminoso

11.   Exit

12.   Anima (Live)

13.   Coercion (Live)

14.   Rains On Me (Remix)

Find the 12” single Rains On Me here