Those lips that sent into me the joy of a long walk through the cold forest in winter's favourite days

As I reach my arms to you

Warm summer rain

Will we never, ever breathe again?

I wanted to do this post its due justice, so instead of writing it down when I first thought of it - which might've been more emotionally honest, if not compeltely factual - I waited for a few days until the words smoldered inside me. So the genesis of this actually begins a fortnight ago - it was my dear friend Sérgio's birthday - and as always we ended up reminiscing about days past, days of our youths, and a time period where everything was so deeply condensed, where we felt so much so earnestly and so very much to the depths of our cores that it truly became a highly formative era for us. I kept on musing on this - for the nth time, really - as I got home. And last week, we had a pretty huge thunderstorm over Lisbon, the kind that is all rolling thunder in the distance, interspersed with flashes of light in the night skies, and every so often a jagged lightning would rip through this midsummer welkin and illuminate us with its terrifying presence. This was, for the longest part, a thunderstorm devoid of rain, but eventually rain started falling, in slow, fat drops that were as like to bruise you as to leave you wet. As it fell, so languidly from the sky, I felt its warmth upon me, and memories of that time I spoke of earlier came flooding back to me - pun intended.

There was a time - this time I evoke here - where me and S and another, distant but never forgotten, friend of ours - N - were exposed to so, so much that would come to develop us - either in the music we listen to, the books we read, the aesthetics of all these worlds that sometimes would crossover, so to speak, with others that would send us down unforeseen paths of knowledge that seemed to just lie behind that elusive corner. This time was the time of the LeFanu and James and Stoker and other Victorian inspired poetry that made up so much of Dani's lyrics for Cradle of Filth. This was the time of Johan Edlund's writings of mind-altering drugs and the music it inspired. It was the time of My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Samael, Moonspell, and a time of Thomas Mann's 'Doctor Faustus' (as well as his son Klaus's 'Mephisto'). It was a time of the first female voices we'd come to adore - Liv Kristine of Theatre of Tragedy, Kari Rueslatten, and later, Ann-Mari Edvardsen in The 3rd and the Mortal, Anneke van Giersbergen in The Gathering. But probably - thought not quite surely - this was also the time were one Darren White would make his presence known to us, and become prevalent as the years went on. We knew of Darren through his then current band Anathema, and that triptych of 'The Crestfallen E.P.', 'Serenades' and 'Pentecost III' - all in these few short years - proved to be an immense boon to us. These were works filled with felt and emotionally raw lyrics, Darren's growl intoning them in a lovelorn fashion, and the instrumental side did its very best to layer it with the most melancholy of sounds.

One day, though - probably through Terrorizer, Metal Hammer, or Kerrang, the word came down that Darren and the band had gone their separate ways - a new record had been in the works, tentatively called 'Rise Pantheon Dreams' - but none of that would come to pass. But what did come to pass?

Ah, well... at least for me, Anathema became a deathly dull endeavour, and I've rarely liked any of their output since, but Daz and some lads he knew quite well would come to produce some bit of magic once more.

So in 1996 we'd learn that together with Paul and Benjamin Ryan, as well as Paul Allender, an ex COF trio, together with drummer WAS and bassist Steve Maloney, Darren had created The Blood Divine, in essence a continuation of some of the themes carried from his Anathema days, as well as a ground for further sonic exploration. That year's 'Awaken' was certainly one of the musical highlights for us, and in due time, they were sure to grace these shores of ours for a gig, and of course we had to be there. Now let me tell you of a ritual of sorts that was quite common for us back then; just before the gig itself, earlier in the day, there'd be a signing session with the band - some of these were fairly crowded events, if I'm remembering correctly the COF session was hell, and maybe Paradise Lost's was heavily attended as well - but some, like Tiamat's - there's a story or three about that one - and TBD's were fairly low key, which - in this particular case - made for a spot of conversation with the band. This session being not very attended - insofar as I can remember - we ended up not only being able to talk with the whole band, but to hang out with them afterwards, even sharing a few drinks in the next door dive. And wouldn't you know, back in the venue we caught up with the guys and they recognized us from earlier, and we talked for a while longer, even joking with the lads that they could play some of the earlier Anathema tunes, with Darren amusingly suggesting to Benjamin that maybe they could do 'A dream of wolves in the snow', a COF song where Darren sang, and a song that is arguably one of the best in their celebrated debut. I actually wanted them to play a specific song - 'Warm Summer Rain' - but no female singer in their entourage meant that it was a no-go. Listening to that thunderstorm last week, my ears turned to 'Awaken' once again. Guess what song I just had to listen  first?

As is yours, reality 

Warm summer rain
Will we never, ever breathe again?