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Shelleyan Orphan “Helleborine” (1987)

Shelleyan Orphan are one of those peculiar little groups that show up once in a while, make some stunning music, and then disappear. They have no peers, so trying to describe who they sound like is impossible. They are etherial, and never more so than on their first album “Helleborine,” a stunning mix of orchestral sweetness and lyrical mastery. Long before their demise into songs with titles like “Dead Cat,” the Orphans were writing songs like “Epitaph Ivy and Woe,” juxtaposing the generally sweet and upbeat timbre of the music with the often graphic lyrics describing a cemetery and a charnel house. On “Anatomy of Love,” vocalist Caroline Crawley asks the same questions that anyone that is in love asks: “Does it still move you? Does it still make you feel that?” “Cavalry of Cloud,” with it’s gorgeous introduction, will give you chills. “Helleborine,” the album’s only instrumental track, is another example of the artistic beauty the Orphans had a complete mastery of. This was their supreme moment, and when they began their fall, they would fall far. —Eric

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