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Rating: The Leviathan has awakened. With slow yet energetic movements, the Ancestral Monster emerges from the depths of a murky ocean to attest to its terrible existence.
Slowly, but something is stirring. Just over a year after the release of "Born Again" (the second full-length album released over the long haul – fourteen years separate it from the release of the masterpiece "The Gospel of Inhumanity"!), "Ultimacy" comes out, which is not the latest album of unreleased material by Blood Axis (who knows how long we'll have to wait for that...), but a recovery operation that gathers and organizes all the material released under the band's name in a scattered and disorderly manner over its twenty-year career.
When I say it's unfindable, I don't mean you won't find it at a service station: no, you simply won't find it.
Not a banal collection of rarities for hysterical collectors, then, but a providential overview of the steps that have marked the hallucinatory artistic journey of Blood Axis on this world: a journey that certainly did not unfold following the typical record industry dynamics of "an album every two years", and which, from the founding of the band in 1989 to the present day, is not even exhausted in the two official full-lengths and the excellent live "Blot: Sacrifice in Sweden", which nonetheless served to fill significant gaps.
Thus, "Ultimacy" is released to tell us a story of which only a distant echo had reached us, a journey into the Extreme that has never stopped despite long silences, sporadic publications, a now-you-see-me-now-you-don't that over time has allowed the Axis to assume even mythical contours.
The Leviathan has dwelt in the depths of the ocean, resurfacing at times, eclipsing for long periods, then emerging abruptly: from the first experiments of Michael Moynihan alone (at the time a companion of the likes of Douglas Pearce and Boyd Rice, with whom he had released in 1989 the seminal "Music, Martinis and Misanthropy"), to the providential entry of Robert Ferbrache, the other mainstay of the Axis. The first compilations, the first singles, the monumental Gospel, then the sudden shift towards neo-folk shores following the entry into the lineup of Moynihan's own partner, the violinist and multi-instrumentalist Annabel Lee; then silence, various collaborations, among which stand out the reinterpretation of the Irish traditional heritage under the moniker Witch Hunt: The Rites of Samhain (hand in hand with B'eirth of In Gowan Ring), and the visionary "Absinthe: La Folie Verte", written in collaboration with the French industrial pioneers Les Jojaux de la Princess. The triumphant return, finally, with an album as enormous as "Born Again" that certainly did not disappoint expectations.
Over these twenty years, every single release by Blood Axis, even the most apparently insignificant, far from being relegated to the status of B-material, has often marked significant steps forward or abrupt changes in direction in the artistic path of Our group (just think of the folkloristic revelation with the reinterpretation of the traditional Irish "The March of Brian Boru" of 1998), and it is no coincidence that in "Ultimacy" we savor classics in full rule, consistently performed live by the band (the mantric "Herjafather"; the martial and anthemic "Lord of Ages", just to name a couple). Everything excellent, therefore, nothing superfluous in the Blood Axis discography, because Blood Axis are not a pastime, or worse still a money machine (how far from it!), but an artistic entity that has managed not to squander its seed in vain, that has known how to patiently wait for the right moment to act, sparingly and effectively rationing out every crumb of its creative verve, pouring every drop of its libido into creations that over time have acquired the flavor of Legend.
Today we find all this in a single work, and if it's true that every single episode stands on its own, it is also true that every piece fits the others for the extremely high quality (these people, folks, have not missed a beat!): even if the Leviathan has, over time, assumed often different forms (it is Moynihan himself who places his art in a mutable state of suspension between Tradition and Innovation), there is an underlying continuity that binds together the seventy-six minutes comprising this work, which lives of contrasts and clashing energies, that knows how to miraculously mix post-industrial visions, aesthetics of the ugly and a passionate recovery of ancient Nordic mythology, all laced with arcane esotericism that winds restlessly through the lucid and irreverent gaze of Moynihan.
The collection opens with "The Ride", which moves from the start with a murder ballad pace to explode into a pompous and pagan refrain where Moynihan's booming voice is soon echoed by his sweet companion's, amidst the trotting martial percussions and the electric blasts of a distorted bass. The track, which seems to come directly from the latest work, is a cover of Brian Pearson (originally contained in the 2005 compilation "Looking for Europe") and is the youngest track of the collection: from it originates a journey that retraces backwards the path of the Axis, a triumphant march yet imbued with misanthropy, nostalgia for an irretrievable past, and apocalyptic visions depicting a terrible present and an equally dreadful future. A journey that initially adopts the forms of sophisticated neo-folk sounds (which well represent the current course of the band, and in this regard, just think of the initial quartet of tracks, among which stand out the raw "Wir Rufen deine Wolfe", sung in German, and the ethereal "Mandragora (Alraune)", which shines for Lee's enchanting voice); a descent into the inferno proceeding through paths of sonic stripping and atrophication, gradually settling on the restless shores of the industrial representations that characterized the first artistic phase of the Axis (how not to mention the masterpieces "Electricity" and "The Storm Before the Calm", the former a cold industrial nightmare, the latter an abysmal ambient track), finally concluding with that jewel of deviant martial post-punk that is "Walked in Line" (the result of the collaboration with the "martial pop" entity Allerseelen), a classic of classics, that we can finally listen to repeatedly until the stereo, CD, and ears are fused.
And the beauty is that everything coexists peacefully, blended by Moynihan's heavy recitation: whether he improvises as an ungraceful singer or poses as a harsh inciter or cynical prophet of the Apocalypse, he may not have the grace of an accomplished singer, but his charisma is undeniably the fuel that moves the fourteen tracks, pushing forward the art of an ensemble that knows how to make each kind of sound unique and inimitable, constantly blending Sacred and Profane, reinventing other people's or traditional folk songs, attempting the most daring combinations, staining folklore with samples, drones, and distortions, or tainting the merciless progress of machines with symphonies, hand percussion, or acoustic instruments: in total freedom, completely outside the box, not only embodying the provocative drive typical of the old industrial school but setting up a unique sound that is the dynamic product of contrasting and very distant forces aimed at destroying the present and regenerating the future through the lessons of the past.
It's not a simple operation, nor is the listening: Blood Axis are not crowd-pleasers, they may seem awkward, raw, bothersome, surely they are not the quintessence of elegance (listen to how Moynihan's spitting German in "Wir rufen deine Wolfe" scrapes, how the plastic baroque elements of "Lord of Ages" are jarring) whereas other "apocalyptic" entities have indeed known with maturity how to craft records increasingly refined and pleasing to the ears. Not Blood Axis: whether they play rough folk or industrial filth, pleasing is certainly not their priority. You either love them or hate them: an overused formula, but never as fitting as in this instance.
I would've liked at this point to unleash a boring track-by-track analysis on you (not an easy task, since gathering information on the tracks is not simple, but I managed to collect some). Then I thought: to hell with it, just listen to it!
Track-list:
1) The Ride
2) Wir Rufen deine Wolfe
3) Mandragora (Alraune)
4) The March of Brian Boru
5) Follow Me Up to Carlow
6) Der Gefallene Engel
7) Herjafather
8) The Hangman and the Papist
9) Bearer of 10,000 Eyes – Lord of Ages
10) Electricity
11) Life
12) Eternal Soul (Germania remix)
13) The Storm before the Calm
14) Walked in Line
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