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A few scattered singles in the void, occasional collaborations, the monumental "The Gospel of Inhumanity": that sums up the official discography of Blood Axis, as prolific as a panda on the brink of extinction, yet fundamental like few others in the stylistic evolution of that gray zone restlessly lingering between grim industrial tradition and apocalyptic folk.
Indeed, every time Michael Moynihan leaves his mark on this earth, the groove is deep, very deep. The live album "Blót: Sacrifice in Sweden" (released in 1998) is no exception: the album in question is a masterpiece, just as the epochal Gospel was, the only full-length released by the band to date.
First of all, Blood Axis is no longer a duo: accompanying Moynihan (vocals and percussion) and Robert Ferbrache (guitars and keyboards) is Moynihan's partner Annabel Lee, a sublime violinist, who will greatly influence the musical fortunes of the band.
Recorded in 1997 for the tenth anniversary of the legendary Swedish label Cold Meat Industry, and under the attentive eye of master Albin Julius (Der Blutharsch), here in the role of sound technician (excellent!), "Blót" is a monumental work (and how could it not be?), where the history of the American band is retraced, reinterpreted, and re-invented: a work conceptually compact, intelligently conceived, excellently packaged.
The first part of the set features unreleased tracks, classics from the very early days, and a so-called cover.
A liturgical organ accompanies the muttering of Moynihan's recorded voice: the heroic "Sarabande Oratoria" ensues. With it, we find Blood Axis exactly where we left them: masters of the most daring juxtapositions, in perfect balance between sacred and profane, Blood Axis erect their usual monument of epicness, tension, and solemnity that only they can stage.
The organ of the mythical "Heriafather" bursts forth, Moynihan's voice gets lost among the rarefied choruses of a mystical invocation destined to open concerts in the years to follow. As in the Gospel, there's no haste in "Blót", nothing follows nothing in a tragic suspension, awaiting the bloody gash caused by the axe that comes to slash our face.
With the third track, hesitations are finally broken: an acoustic guitar and Lee's dreamy violin chants appear: Blood Axis definitively change their style, fully embracing the classical conventions of neo-folk. But those who chew apocalyptic folk will not remain indifferent: it's a reinterpretation of "Seeker", a gem directly retrieved from Fire + Ice's repertoire of Moynihan's friend Ian Read. The grim gurgling of Moynihan's baritone voice finally takes flight, perfectly penetrating the dark weavings of a composition that was originally helmed by the ungraceful singing of that mad priestess of the Runes known as Freya Aswynn. All this, mind you, is tear-inducing.
With the fourth track, there's a sudden leap back in the band's most remote past: one of the very first singles ever released, that "Electricity" industrial nightmare that still rattles the bones in its passage, like a polar wind on a newborn's skin, like a red-hot iron branding the flesh. How much the Blutharsch have to learn!
"Lord of Ages" (another classic from the early days) and "The March of Brian Boru" (a recreation of a folk song from the Irish tradition) conclude the first part of the set with percussive assaults and acoustic sounds that temper the band's typical industrial atrocities, in favor of a folk-popular attitude aligning Blood Axis with the standards of their British peers.
A brief interlude haunted by the wind's hiss and the haunting howling of wolves leads to the second portion of the recording, where the Gospel will be retraced in its salient features, religiously presented almost in its entirety.
The megaphone voice of a certain dictator from our parts makes its way, intent on hoarsely declaiming one of his most famous speeches: the threatening overture "The Gospel of Inhumanity" gradually rises in the background, the intensity sky-high, thanks especially to Lee's pressing violin merging with the symphonic plots of the piece: perhaps no one has ever gone so far, Blood Axis pushes the aesthetics of the unpleasant to a further level of harshness; but, regardless of the flag you belong to, it's hard to remain indifferent in front of yet another perverse invention devised by Moynihan and company.
Tracks of the caliber of "Eternal Soul", "Between Birds of Prey", and the indispensable "Reign I Forever" follow, shaken by rain and thunder, probably the artistic pinnacle of the Axis (thanks to Prokofiev, thanks to whoever the hell you like, but the panic ecstasy this track can provoke in the listener hardly finds parallels in the history of popular music). Live, paradoxically, the sounds emerge clearer than in the album: guitars acquire body, shedding, on one hand, the rotten charm of the post-punk sounds they originally donned, while gaining, on the other, metallic power, showing that Blood Axis doesn't mess around live either.
There's time for another cover, the sublime "The Hangman and the Papist" (David Cousins, 1971), an intense ballad that takes us directly toward the more twilight Nick Cave (a Nick Cave, however, driven by drums, with a swastika tattooed on his forehead and a baton stuck up his ass!). The Gospel's flow, interrupted by the visionary singer-songwriter parenthesis, is then resumed by the stormy "Storm of Steel", whose ten minutes have the task of closing the dances, just as it happened in the Gospel.
Amidst the clattering of a deteriorating electric guitar and dark black mass choruses (while the audience is practically non-existent throughout the performance, likely heavily retouched in the studio), what we can define as the last significant testimony (to date!, one hopes) of an immortal legend concludes, which, despite the long silences, the exhausting waits, the nothing that separates nothing, continues to survive in the darkness, like a fire capable of suddenly flaring from a slumbering yet ardent ember.
Class isn't water: class is blood!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Electricity (06:08)
We three
When all these things are done
And the stream of blood
Has veiled the murky air
With paws of crimson
Which the sun sucks upwards
Then we shall dance
All thy blood
Around thy tomb
And over the piled corpses
I will lift my limbs
High with each step
And all the folk who'll see me there
Yea, all who from afar only my shadow see will say
For a great king
All his flesh and blood
Hold high festival and solemn revel
And blessed is he
That hath children
Who will dance around his holy tomb
Such royal dances of victory!
We are three muscle spirits
In electricity
Force and aim in energy
While you are merely two
A form, if that
Motion - a minimum
And content defeated
The worshippers of lies
Our muscle: the fist!
Our spirit: intrepid!
Our life: blood!
Our duty: war!
Three crushing two
Muscle wrenching form
Force fights inertia
Deciding factor
The power to bend
The world isn't there
It never was
Harness the thought
It has no choise
It must bend
This power
This circuit
This power
This power is ours alone
Our head: clear!
Our hands: clean!
Our eyes: open!
Our fists: strong!
The number of the few
The stagnant multitudes
The hour approaches
And we exult in moment
A pit of burning corpses
And sing
An ode to joy
Avenge the murder of the spirit
Hail victory!
Hail victory!
Hail victory!
Electricity
Hail victory!
Hail victory!
Hail victory!
Electricity
Hail victory!
Hail victory!
Hail victory!
Electricity
Für Lieber töt aus Leben
Und nicht Leben
05 Lord of Ages (06:44)
Fertile earth Pallas who procreates everything
Rock-bound spring that fed the twin brothers with nectar
This young bull which he carried on his shoulders
According to his ways
And I have recieved it
I have bourn on my shoulders the greatest things of the gods
Sweet are the livers of the birds
The careigns over he who has spies reborn
And created by the sweet things
You must conduct the right through clouded times together
And here is the first
The ram runs exactly on his course
And you saved us
After having shed the eternal blood
Accept the holy Father
Accept the incense burning Lions
Through whom we offer the incence
Through whom we ourselves are consumed
And hail to the lions
For many and new years
Hail to the lions for many and new years
Hail to the lions
Mithras, god of the morning, our trumpets waken the wall
Rome is above the nations, but thou art over all
Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away
Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day
Mithras, god of the noontide, thy heather swims in the heat
Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet
Now in the ungirt hour, now ere we blink and drowse
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows
Mithras, lord of ages, below you we march
Invincible sun, the flame of life, you dwell within our hearts
Mithras, god of the sunset, low on the western main
Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again
Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn
Mithras, lord of the midnight, here where the great bull dies
Look on thy children in darkness, oh take our sacrifice
Many roads thou hast fashioned, all of them lead to the light
Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright
Mithras, lord of ages, below you we march
Invincible sun, the flame of life, you dwell within our hearts
Mithras, lord of ages, below you we march
Unconquerable sun, the flame of life, you dwell within our hearts
07 The Gospel of Inhumanity (04:47)
Album version
- Oh, God! Oh, Jesus Christ! Oh, my God! Christ! No, no, dear God! No, Christ!
- Mighty god of the Sun, bountiful goddess of our orchards, accept our sacrifice and make our blossoms fruit.
- Accept our sacrifice and make our blossoms fruit!
- Mighty god of the Sun, bountiful goddess of our orchards...
- Hear ye the words of the lord!
- ...accept our sacrifice and make our blossoms fruit.
- Awake, ye heathens, and hold! It is the Lord who hath laid waste your orchards! It is he who hath made them bare!
- Reverence the sacrifice.
- Hold, ye husbandmen, because the harvest of your field hath perished and the vine is dried up and the apple tree languisheth! Even all the trees of the field are withered because the truth is withered away from the sons of men. Desire shall fail and ye shall all die!
Samples from The Wicker Man
Live version
(...)
From a recorded speech by Benito Mussolini
08 Eternal Soul (04:04)
Beyond time and released from sin
As we prow to the slain, determination grim
As a visor who feeds the soil, and the wheel turns again
These last great men will walk, the final links in a chain
On soul is eternal
Nothing is above that soul
Spirits forged in darkness and hewn from love
Welcome the death of the lie, all hail the bleeding dove
With our heads in a deathless realm, our feat firm on the land
Heed, this nature is summoned, for the final stand
On soul is eternal
And nothing is above that soul
Ja, ich weiss, und er ist samme
Ungesettich bleich ett flamme
Müde und versettnich ist
Nicht mehr alles ist wasser
Kohl alles was ist das wasser
Flabben bin ich sicherich
Flammen bin ich sücherüch
We discovered the first one, as he too is the last
On murder sign on the homeland, trough which all must pass
Rising upper mist of fear, moving like shadows unseen
Echoing the ancient forests, clothe in black and green
On soul is eternal
And nothing is above that soul
From the smallest of creatures, up thorugh the spiraling coil
Down from the world of spirits, return back into the soil
From the falling moon, to the ascending sun
Hail eternal recurrents, now all is one
All is one
All is one
All is one
Die Wahrheit ist einz
09 Between Birds of Prey (08:49)
Who would here descend,
How soon
Is he swallowed up by the dephts!
Thou, Zarathustra,
Still lovest the abysses
Lovest them as doth the fir tree?
The fir flings it's roots, where
The rock self gazes
Shuddering at the depths
The fir pauses before the abysses,
Where all around,
Would feign descend,
Amid the impatience
Of wild rolling, leaping currents
It waits so patient, stern and silent,
Lonely
Lonely
Who would venture here
To be guest,
To be thy guest?
A bird of pray per chance,
Joyious at others misfortune,
Will cling persistent,
To the heir of his steadfast watcher,
With frenzy laughter,
A vulture's laughter
Wherefore so steadfast?
Mocks he so cruel,
He must have wings, who love the abyss,
He must not stay on the cliff,
As thou, who hangest there!
Oh Zarathustra,
Cruelest nimrod!
Of late still a hunter of God,
A spider's web to capture virtue,
An arrow of evil!
Now,
Hunted by thyself,
Thine own prey,
Caught in the grip of thy own soul
Now,
Lonely to me and thee,
To fold in thy own knowledge,
Amid a hundred mirrors,
False to thyself.
With a hundred
Memories,
Uncertain and weary in every wound,
Shimmering, at every frost,
Throttled, in thy own noose,
Self-knower!
self-hangman!
Why didst bine thyself
With the noose of thy wisdom?
Why lureth thyself,
To the old serpent's paradise?
Why stolest into thyself
Thyself?
A sick man now,
Sick of serpents poison,
A captive now,
Who has drawn the hardest lot:
In thy own shaft
Now, does thou workest,
In thine own cavern.
Digging at thyself,
Helpless quite,
Stiff,
A cold corpse
Overwhelmed with a hundred burdens,
Overburdened by thyself,
A knower,
A self-knower!
The wise Zarathustra!
Thou soughtest the heaviest burden
So foundest thou thyself,
And canst not shake thyself off
Watching,
Crouching,
One that stands upright no more!
Thy will prow deform,
Even thy grave deformed spirit!
And of late still so proud,
On all stilts of thy pride!
Of late still the godless hermit,
The hermit with one comrade - the devil,
The scarlet prince, every devilment!
Now,
between two nothings,
Huddled up,
A question mark,
A weary riddle
A riddle for vultures
They will solve thee,
They hunger already for thy solution,
They flutter already, above their riddle,
Above thee, the doomed one,
Oh Zarathustra!
Self-knower!
self-hangman!
From a poem by Friedrich Nietzsche
10 Reign I Forever (07:21)
I am the God Thor
I am the War God
Here in my Northland
My fastness and fortress
Reign I forever!
Here amid icebergs
Rule I the nations
This is my hammer!
Giants and sorcerers
Cannot withstand it!
These are the gauntlets
Wherewith I wield it
And hurl it afar off
This is my girdle
Whenever I brace it
Strength is redoubled!
The light thou beholdest
Stream through the heavens
In flashes of crimson
Is but my red beard
Blown by the night-wind
Affrighting the nations!
Jove is my brother
Mine eyes are the lightning
The wheels of my chariot
Roll in the thunder
The blows of my hammer
Ring in the earthquake!
Force rules the world still
Has ruled it, shall rule it
Meekness is weakness
And strength is triumphant
Over the whole earth
Still it is Thor's Day!
I am the God Thor
I am the War God
Here in my Northlands
My fastness and fortress
Reign I forever!
Reign I forever!
Reign I forever!
Thonor forever!
From the poem "The Challange of Thor" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
12 Storm of Steel (08:53)
Come now my brothers, gather around
Listen carefully for the final sound
The tawling clang, the peel of the bell
For we must live past the last deathknell
Rejoice in an eternity of endless pain
For their world of insanity left us sane
Sing! For life, in storms of steel
Strength! Through strife, in storms of steel
Sing! For life, in storms of steel
Strength! Through strife, in storms of steel
Until all is said and done
When the stream of blood has all yet run
When silent darkness covers this land
Of swallen rubble once did stand
Now forever gone to the forgotten
No epitath for all that was simply rotten
Sing! For life, in storms of steel
Strength! Through strife, in storms of steel
Sing! For life, in storms of steel
Strength! Through strife, in storms of steel
It belongs to us tomorrows born
But for tonight we must still rally this storm
And sing! For life, in storms of steel
Strength! Through strife, in storms of steel
Sing! For life, in storms of steel
Strength! Through strife, in storms of steel
Now sing! For life, in storms of steel
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