Volume One of Delerium's Archives series includes selections from four early albums: Faces, Forms & Illusions; Morpheus; Syrophenikan; and Stone Tower. Fans will obviously be familiar with this material already, but it's nevertheless an uncovering of the band's interesting, often eerie roots. The first two albums are disquietingly spare, often relying on minimal percussion and echoing soundscapes to get their point across. Standouts include "Fragments of Fear," and the comparably upbeat, light industrial thud of "Sword." 1991's Syrophenikan vacillates between spooky navel-gazing (the Coil-ish "Shroud"), and synth-heavy, mid-tempo experimentation ("Of the Tribe"), while Archives, Vol. 1 closes with the cathedrals-collapsing-in-slow-motion dirges of Stone Tower. Highly recommended for Delerium completists.

Amazon Review
I am a massive Delerium fan and have been for a few years now. I'm in the process of checking out the group's older material which doesn't have the angelic female vocals found on "Karma", "Poem" and even "Semantic Spaces". Unfortunately finding the group's early albums such as "Faces, Forms, and Illusions", "Morpheus", and "Stone Tower" is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Most major record stores do not carry the group's albums when they were on Hypnotic/Cleopatra records. I don't have a problem finding their albums prior to "Karma" because a local record store where I live carries the albums I just listed however for a lot of Delerium fans I am sure they have trouble because there aren't many copies readily available. Both volumes of "Spiritual Archives" that were just recently released contains music from the group's days when they were putting out strictly ambient music minus the female vocals. I already own "Syrophenikan" but that didn't stop me from buying the first volume of "Spiritual Archives". I was intrigued to hear if there was any difference in "Faces, Forms and Illusions", "Morpheus", and "Stone Tower". There isn't but I don't mean that in a negative way. The music is extremely moody and enchanting. The songs collected from "Faces, Forms, and Illusions", "Morpheus", "Syrophenikan", and "Stone Tower" is definitely far darker than the music found on "Karma" and "Poem". The layers of various ambient sounds adds a richness to the music not heard on "Karma" and "Poem". I particularly enjoyed the songs off "Faces, Forms and Illusions" as we as "Syrophenikan". Now while most of my favorite Delerium songs are off "Karma" and "Poem", I dug the tribal, orchestral ambient sounds of Delerium's earliest material. It is such a contrast to the music that they have been releasing in recent years.