Confession time! When I'm perusing the generally lengthy lists of materials available for review to myself and my co-conspirators at GMR, I'll first look for artists with whose work I am familiar with or CDs in a genre I know, if I'm not totally familiar with the particulars of that specific recording. And then, I'll pretty much use the "Hey, that sounds interesting" test, basically volunteering for whatever, well, sounds interesting. Such was the case with the Blackmore's Night package up for review right now.

So when this thing arrived in my mailbox, I opened it up and thumbed through the booklet and looked at the cover art and scanned the track titles -- you know, all the normal stuff you do when confronted with a CD by an artist you've never heard of before. And my immediate thought was, "I'm either going to adore this thing, or I'm going to hate it with passion unrivaled." Well, that was a couple of months ago, and I haven't gone more than a few days since then without playing Beyond the Sunset.

So yeah, this Blackmore's Night is right up my alley. And I mean, it's right up my alley. This is one of those rare musical acts that makes me wonder where the hell they've been for the last five years, and why on Earth I haven't heard of them until now.

Blackmore's Night is the brainchild of Ritchie Blackmore, once a guitarist for the 70s rock band Deep Purple (but whose musical history goes back a lot farther than that, to judge by the bio on the Blackmore's Night Web site). Blackmore's Night, as a band, dates from 1996, when Blackmore teamed with vocalist Candice Night to form his new musical venture. And for those familiar with Ritchie Blackmore from the world of classic rock, Blackmore's Night is as far from that as you can get. This is romantic music with a Renaissance Faire feel.

Put it this way . . . Imagine you've just spent an entire summer day at one of those wonderful Renaissance Faires, watching artisans demonstrate their crafts, perusing the tiny shops, noshing on turkey legs and drinking wine, watching the jousting, and immersing yourself in the possibility that something "of olde" can still exist. At the end of that day, as you leave the front gate of the Faire and head for your car, you notice that a stage has been constructed in the giant field that serves as a parking lot, for some kind of live musical performance. Even though you're dog-tired from walking the Faire, you decide to stick around and hear the performance that's about to unfold as the sun sets and the moon rises. What kind of music would you hear? The kind that Blackmore's Night performs, of course. That's what I kept thinking in the course of listening to Beyond the Sunset, and this impression was borne out when I watched the accompanying DVD, which presents five numbers performed live by the band on a stage outside what appears to be a medieval castle. We're talking here about an album whose liner notes list the performers under the heading "minstrels."

The disc's subtitle, The Romantic Collection, is in no way a misnomer. These are all love songs, and they all sound like love songs. People looking for irony, sardonic wit, or cynicism in any way should probably pass Beyond the Sunset by entirely; but people looking for the kind of music that evokes images of lots of candles and slowdancing (in addition to the moonlit castle I mention above) will be right at home. The lyrics of the songs speak of shining white knights appearing once in a million years, of maidens reclining amongst the leaves of amber, of hearts breaking and healing.

I'm sure that Blackmore's Night won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I can't deny their appeal. Candice Night's voice is strangely captivating, despite a kind of nasal intonation that I usually find off-putting in other vocalists. I like the way Ritchie Blackmore doesn't really put any kind of classic rock guitar pyrotechnics on display, as might have been tempting. Maybe it's the case that to really enjoy this disc, you have to be in a certain mood. Fair enough. I'm in that mood a lot of the time.

This disc also included an EP called simply Christmas Songs, of which there are three: "Christmas Eve," "Emanuel," and "We Three Kings." I enjoyed these performances, and I hope their presence on this EP points to a full-length Blackmore's Night Christmas CD sometime in the future.