‘Eye Of The Hunter’ is Brendan Perry's first solo album, and it builds on his reputation as Dead Can Dance's meditative, baritone singer/songwriter, in that it follows conventional song structures and it’s the most coherent thing he has produced. Perry's rich vocals and the songs' orchestral-folk arrangements and sombre titles give the album an intriguing Gothic/easy listening feel, similar to Scott Walker's darkest Baroque pop. However, in its attempts to pitch Perry‘s music into the same strata of operatic melancholy as his heroes Tim Buckley and Scott Walker, it may also mark the defining moment of insanity of his previously austere career.
Along with seven original tracks like "Medusa," "Saturday's Child," and "Archangel," Eye Of The Hunter also includes a thoughtful cover of Tim Buckley's "I Must Have Been Blind." We are floating away into the mountains of madness, then, and while Perry‘s aspirations are too huge to exist in the realms of the possible, ‘Eye Of The Hunter’ is blessed with snatches of delusional brilliance nonetheless. As Perry sings on ‘The Captive Heart’, “I’ve seen too many men driven insane by their distractions”. Here, for posterity, is concrete proof of that epithet. Though the stately pace of the songs becomes monotonous at times, Perry's first solo effort is a mature work worthy of his reputation.