"Alarm Agents" enters the market after almost 4 years of silence and follows the not-exciting but altogether dignified
"All Pigs Must Die", an album that had disappointed many Death in June fans and sparked fears of an impending creative stagnation from good Douglas Pearce. As before, Boyd Rice joins forces with our protagonist, this time taking on all the vocals, relegating Pearce to secondary embellishments. This aspect makes the current tome a somewhat anomalous example in the group's discography, bringing it closer to the sounds of projects involving both artists, such as Boyd Rice and Friends, Wolfpact, and Scorpion Wind, for which we find the same lineup here, completed by the percussionist John Murphy (his contribution is crucial!).
While not in any way comparable to the illustrious past of the group, we are not faced with a flop. I like to call it the post-9/11 album of Death in June because it seems to me that the atmosphere it exudes is somehow influenced by the climate of instability, conflict, and terror in today’s international situation (perhaps influenced by the American Rice, who has long advocated Darwinist theories of natural selection applied to society, seeing the clash between civilizations, the fight of man against man, the right of the strong to prevail over the weak, etc., as laws of nature — and now that the rest of the world seems to align with his creed, I imagine him more electrified than ever!).
It might just be an impression, but the fact is that we are confronted with a damned apocalyptic work, where, for the first time, the music no longer wants to be a portrait of the tormented soul of its leader, but rather the image of a world in crisis, in a state of disintegration and nearing its end.
This end is perceivable in the signs, the "alarm agents," that tear apart the unstable balance of a world that, despite everything, still appears to us, in all its hypocrisy and superficiality, welcoming and reassuring.
It’s no coincidence that the album opens with the sound of an alarm clock, a clear admonition to awaken from our slumber and realize the seriousness of the situation we are in, the reality in all its harshness. But more than that, symbolizing these signals that reality sends us and that should wake us from our state of catalepsy, but that we do not want to see, we have the song of the seagulls, which, along with the rippling of the waves, accompanies us throughout the listening experience. Seagulls announcing the storm, while the sea, the sun, and the moon are the symbol of a pristine and pure nature to which we look back with extreme nostalgia, but also with fear, because in nature there is no beauty and ugliness, good and evil, but only ruthless and blind laws capable of sweeping everything away.
An album made of contrasts: the calm of a reassuring past, the thunder of a stormy future, the impending clash, fear, tension but at the same time the aesthetics of struggle, the need to face and not endure the end. I say this to dispel any doubts: we are faced with a spoken-word album (not sung!), in the full style of albums featuring Rice. I recognize that this may be considered a major limitation, yet I feel that his recitation, visionary and decadent, does not overly burden the work, always proving brilliant and full of pathos, in perfect harmony with the apocalyptic mood of the album.
Moreover, the fact that the words are well articulated makes it possible to understand the lyrics, which fortunately have been purged of the more extreme and right-wing content that one might expect: decadent and prophetic visions, at times poetic, at times veiled by impenetrable symbolism, which effectively express the misanthropic and pessimistic attitude of the duo, without ever falling into crude racist and fascistic diatribes to which the character in question has accustomed us. The 2004 Death in June sound corpus is more typical than ever and consists of acoustic guitar and keyboards, reminiscent of albums like "But, What Ends When the Symbols Shatter?" and "Rose Clouds of Holocaust".
It's the poetics of the end, which Douglas places at the service of his friend, without straining too much, to be honest: sure, there are truly captivating melodies, but it's also true that they are the same chords as always, which our guy has been proposing for too long. And reasonably, someone (not myself) might get tired.
The songs are interspersed with short interludes (the sound of the sea, the song of the seagulls, dialogues about the meaning of life), a calm that is suddenly shattered by noisy incursions and episodes revealing an underlying malaise.
Folk songs in perfect Death in June style alternate with the typical sound assaults of Non, demonstrating the perfect balance of the two personalities in the realization of the work in question. The first strain undoubtedly includes the effective opener "Black Sun Rising", epic in its progression, with Douglas’ counter-singing enriching the tired and damned singing, in full Jim Morrison style, of a Rice in top form. Or the apocalyptic "Storm on the Sea", perhaps the pivotal moment of the album, also epic in its progression, thanks to Murphy’s imaginative work. The second strain includes industrial/noise songs like the menacing and belligerent "Deeper than Love", which wouldn't be out of place in an album like "Might!" by Non, or the distressing and obsessive "Are you out There", dominated by Douglas' alienating chant. The Middle Eastern citar of "Get Used to say No!" instead evokes Jihad-like atmospheres.
Unfortunately, not the entire album maintains the same level, and so, after a rather pleasant first part, follows a less inspired and more verbose second part, dominated by uninspired, redundant episodes that add little to what was previously said (and where Douglas appears less inspired, even Rice’s spoken vocals become tiresome). "The Man who Laughs", a looping laughter repeated for several minutes, even sounds like a mockery.
What to say, an album recommended for those who do not expect too much from life or who perhaps already know and appreciate the works of Boyd Rice. For everyone else, a chilling thing, especially if compared to the group's masterpieces. For the most pessimistic, a truly disturbing sign that not only confirms Pearce's creative stagnation (already short on ideas for quite some time), but starkly reveals an evident unwillingness to carry on the project by the artist himself, who seems to feel more at home in Australian lands, tinkering with koalas.
Tracklist
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