This perfomance is simply amazing. And a little prophetic too..."I kissed and killed an ambulance"..."In memoriam". The nostalgy and the void left for Sleazy and John's death in the world of experimental electronic music is impossible to fullfill...They were one of the best bands of the ladt 30 years, with no commercial compromise and a "magic" that's grown through music and Balance's voice during those years that reached peaks unreacheable by other groups. A "live" milestone in history of live performances.

Live performance April 4 2003Track 2. Snow Falls Into Military Temples:john Balance voice sounds like an alien cry in a strange Ritual on a frozen star, he cries and prays prayers of mourning .The sound effects are very strange and not taken from our world, sounds of marimba are very dominant during the track. .After 10:52 minutesBalance repeats again and again on the same line:" Snow Falls Into Military Temples".From Minute 14 and 35 secondsthe alien voice joins again And continues until the end of the song.All the tracks here are excellent but for me Snow Falls Into Military Templesis the ultimate diamond on this cd.

This is a very heavy record to review. Consisting of their April 4 2003 appearance at All Tomorrow's Parties, it is the chronicle of a band falling apart. No amount of live appearances (and releases) or statements to the contrary could conceal that Coil were nearly through. References in the lyrics to "medication I didn't want to take" and statements to the audience that "we're going to do a quiet set today, we've had too much...shouting over the last year" are very telling indeed."...And the Ambulance Died in His Arms" is the first post-Coil work to be released since Balance's death in November 2004. It does not disappoint. Of the five tracks featured, only one has been issued before. "Triple Sun Introduction" opens it up, featuring sequencing that reminds me of their psychedelically (psychotically?) charged album "Stolen and Contaminated Songs". Following this, "Snow Falls into Military Temples" is harrowing, a hair-raising vocal performance by Jhonn raises the stakes; you can actually hear him channeling the chaos of his own life into the microphone. It is the third song "A Slip in the Marylebone Road" where you begin to feel what this band had been through the previous year. The music is dark, oppressive and surprisingly enough, somewhat linear. But not in the verse/chorus methodology you are used to. A nightmarish tale is unfurled, the damage done too much to cope with.The concluding work, the previously released "The Dreamer Is Still Asleep" (taken from "Music to Play in the Dark Volume 1") is virtually unrecognizable, the bare essence of its structure left intact to serve as a reference point for the audience and listener. Given the surname "The Somnabulist in an Ambulance", it becomes an entirely new piece. One which is eerily prescient and heart-rending with its intensity.