Blood Axis
Blót: Sacrifice in Sweden

THE REVIEW

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!