Antonius Rex
Hystero Demonopathy

Anno Demoni 2012: Antonius Rex by Antonio Bartoccetti releases another album, but that's hardly news anymore. After twenty-five years of silence (those that separated “Praeternatural” from the EP “Magic Ritual,” released in 2005), for Magus Antonio, it is now customary to come out with a new release every two or three years, reaching the milestone of the third full-length in just over a lustrum (not counting the sensational return to the scene under the moniker Jacula with that “Pre Viam” just two years ago): “Switch on Dark” (2006), “Per Viam” (2009), and here he comes again with the recent “Hystero Demonopathy,” released no less than on 12.12.12, a symbolic date for that old fox of the Occult that is the musician from Marche.

Antonius Rex returns as a trio: a trio that obviously centers around the charismatic figure of Bartoccetti, joined once again by medium Monika Tasnad (already on board from the times of “Switch on Dark”) and his son Rexanthony, who has been supporting his father for some years now, first as a collaborator in Antonius Rex, then as an official member in the latest Jacula. Worth noting is the absence of companion Doris Norton in the lineup, although she contributes to the writing of three episodes: a significant defection, considering how Norton's input has always been influential in the sound economy of Antonius Rex. However, her absence is compensated by the trained hand of her son, in perfect symbiosis with his father, bound by an indissoluble and visceral blood tie.

What to expect from this new release? Nothing particularly destabilizing for the trained ears of the band's aficionados: the sound of Antonio Bartoccetti's third-millennium creation is now tried-and-true, almost predictable I dare say, set on a horror-prog tributary to the authorities that ruled the scene in the seventies (Goblin, of course, but also Keith Emerson, John Carpenter, and Mike Oldfield of “Tubular Bells”), all revamped with new sounds and a pinch of electronics.

But if I had not found “Switch on Dark” on par with past productions, and if I ultimately liked “Per Viam” less than “Switch on Dark,” “Hystero Demonopathy,” at first listen, places itself a notch below its predecessor, and even below the last Jacula, which also relied on the Bartoccetti/Rexanthony axis: it lacks the majesty, the “joyous” dispersiveness of “Switch on Dark,” and the compactness, the lacquered physicality of “Per Viam,” certainly neglecting something in the arrangement stage, losing in thickness/depth of sounds, sounding overall more subtle and “ramshackle.” For this reason, “Hystero Demonopathy” will not be love at first sight, but for the same reason, it will be a work subject to grow with repeated listens.

Dominated by an irrational modus operandi in its development, a style perhaps more free, wild, less harmonious, disconnected in its parts, certainly deprived of the elegance that Norton's expert touch would have conferred, but rewarded by Rexanthony's youthful exuberance bursting with vitality, thus jittery in its disturbing progressive shifts, this latest work of Antonius Rex retains a certain charm (the charm of the arcane, the charm of mystery, madness, irrationality), and ends up vaguely recalling a minor episode from their discography like “Anno Demoni.” But while this 1979 work legitimately sounded disjointed, being a collection of recordings from different periods, Bartoccetti's latest discographic effort is supported by a well-defined concept: “Hystero Demonopathy,” as the title suggests, aims to interpret the pathologies typically associated with the female psyche in the past in a paranormal key, pointing them out as disturbing manifestations/incursions of the Devil. And it is on this theme that Bartoccetti's nine 2012 “observations” develop, culminating in the resurrection of the horrifying “Possaction,” already the closing track of “Pre Viam,” which in fact fits better here than elsewhere: the musical commentary on an original audio document that captures the feral spasms of Sandra B. during the exorcism rite that was supposed to free her from the alleged possession (the woman would instead die by suicide in 2010).

Fans of the band can rest easy: Antonius Rex's latest work retains the most typical ingredients of its creator's horrific “poetics”: long and substantial compositions, suspended between dark ambient and guitar blows worthy of the hottest metal. Perhaps, less perceptible are those “mystical research” moods that previous works exuded, as in its tormented evolution disrupted by indomitable jolts, “Hystero Demonopathy” seems to possess a morbidly documentary cut: that of a cruel documentary whose fiery and blood-dripping pages express the will to address the theme from various angles. Fear, fragility, the chill of a damned soul, the pain of a tormented body.

For the purposes of the concept, the erotic/heretical component will understandably be fueled, the inquisitorial charge of Antonius Rex's music, certainly not a novelty in the Bartoccetti household: witch hisses, piercing screams of pain, the sounds of panting and voluptuous females (the voices of guests Laura Haslam and Svetlana Serduchka) punctuate the profile of threatening sound monuments erected in their usual instrumental setup, except for two episodes (“Disincantation,” which not by chance recalls the very first Jacula, and “The Fatal Letter”) where Antonio Bartoccetti's chilling narrative materializes, here devoted to a resigned and gloomy melancholy, authentic poetry of the Abyss.

“She, with her petrified mouth

with frozen breath

was already deceased...

She spent the days and nights

with tear-blind eyes

dying of sorrow”

“Now her only memory

is like tales of mist

while motionless

she watches the flowers through the roots”

Music of the Abyss. Among rhythmic patterns (not always impeccable) and the significant contribution of drummer Florian Gorman (now a regular guest in Bartoccetti's recent works), the usual synthetic orchestra of Antonius Rex evolves, illuminated by Rexanthony's exquisitely prog/seventies flair (heart-pounding are the keyboard runs threading through the ultra-dynamic “The Devils Nightmare”), here and there possessed by an unexpected jazz demon (the piano coda of “The Fatal Letter”). For the rest: angelic choirs, Gregorian chants, organ at will, and heaps of Gothic endlessly. Gothic even treacly (the sugary movements, almost cloying, of “Suicide Goth”); Gothic complemented by the dark edges of an industrial “chamber” (“Demonic Hysteria”); Gothic above all wild, that does not disdain ultra-heavy guitars (the dry thrash metal riffs shaking “Are Mine,” probably the hardest piece ever written by the Magister). Finally, Gothic that culminates in the most unhealthy sabbath the human (human?) mind can conceive: “Witches” (among the highest moments, one of the most unreachable for others), a labyrinth of terrible and phantasmic sounds, is a funeral march evolving to the martial step of broken glass and booming inquisitor screams lacking mercy.

Bartoccetti's guitar, which as usual loves to disappear leaving ample room to synthesizers, piano, church organ, horror film effects, when it decides to manifest always ends up making a mark, either with the majestic hammering of sharp rhythms or with the furious whirl of blazing solos (or even with the bluesy softness of acoustic phrasings, as happens, for example, in the second portion of “Disincantation”), branding each track, inspiring them, animating them, “driving them mad,” giving them life, as proof of the first showcase of supreme class offered: the unmissable solo placed in the finale of the title track, an unexpected master's stroke capable of instantly reviving an atmospheric piece that seemed to serve only as an introduction to the work.

Gothic atmosphere lovers will certainly find plenty to enjoy; others, however, may have to chew through (perhaps with difficulty) a now somewhat workmanlike rock, which demands, indeed demands to be gaudy, vulgar beyond measure, as the horror masters to whom Antonius Rex are inspired knew how to be, venturing into territories where Evil confuses with excess, and where a joke seems to hide around the corner (like the caricatured devil laughs overlapping with Sandra B.'s hysterical screams in the traumatizing closing track). But if this is to be considered a joke, then it is a cruel joke, one in bad taste, which instead of good humor will leave behind discomfort and unease, an unsettling sense of alienation, that impression of having concluded an experience that did not merely involve the dimension of art.

May God have mercy on us.