Christian Death
Pornographic Messiah

Everyone hates Valor Kand.

Everyone hates Valor Kand the usurper, the one who stole the magic of the name Christian Death from its rightful owner, even accused of pushing the "poor" Rozz Williams toward a tragic destiny called suicide.

Everyone hates Valor Kand's Christian Death: from Williams Faith of Faith and the Muse (who never miss an opportunity at every concert to perform some cover of the late Rozz Christian Death, insulting Valor) to former bandmates like "Bari-Bari" Galvin (main songwriter of "Atrocities," the first LP of the Kand era under sole command and mastermind of Mephisto Waltz), passing through the former "lover/concubine/singer/circus performer/mother of his son Sevan" Gitane Demone, to Rozz Williams' historical partner, that is, Eva O, who in every way sought to throw dirt on our non-hero.

The specialized press hates Valor Kand, considered a very modest author despite the pompousness of his statements and the pretentiousness of his works.

No less do the fans of the early days and beyond, who accuse him of completely distorting the philosophically desecrating and anti-Christian concept from the post-punk soul of the early days, transforming it into a disgustingly vulgar and insipid caricature, without foundations, devoid of that pathos and that Kafkaesque pain/self-harm that only the good Rozz could guarantee.

Even the FBI kept an eye on him for several years, so much so that the official website of the band, before being viewed in its entirety, displayed the writing of the site under federal investigation.

Yet, stubborn and convinced of himself, our Valor has continued indiscriminately to record albums, to perform concerts wherever possible, to revolutionize the lineup, to be cursed by everyone, to scrape together, crawling, record deals to make ends meet and to record his "art".

Art that sometimes justified the hatred of many, suffice it to consider albums like "All the Love /All the Hate," "Sexy Death God" or "Prophecies," while other times it managed to produce remarkable musical expressions such as "Atrocities," "The Wind Kissed Pictures," "Insanus, Ultio, Proditio, Misericordiaque" (the last work in which there is the presence under the same aegis of Rozz and Valor) and "Pornoghraphic Messiah," which we are about to discuss more thoroughly.

The album under review was released in the spring of 1998, two years after the disastrous "Prophecies" (some truly dark sparks exist but they are lost in an incredibly inconclusive sonic chaos) and represents a nice change of direction: from production to the elaborate artwork, a strong desire for rejuvenation can be noticed, a definitive detachment from the unhealthy mediocrity of publications of the previous ten years ("Insanus....." apart, but that's a personal opinion). Lastly, the umpteenth attempt to separate from the gothic/death rock clichés, from which for a long time Valor tried, in vain, to escape only to generate monstrous but ineffective chimeras (see above).

"Pornoghraphic Messiah" is presented divided into three acts, "Devine Manifestation", "Dissent and Decadence", "Philtre of Death" (with respective booklets) in which the good Valor, aided by the exuberant and "faithful" Maitri, tries to describe "a true life drama of humanity," that is, the umpteenth dissertation on monotheistic/polytheistic religions and related consequences (nothing original nor treated with an understanding of the issue at a lyrical level).

From a purely sonic point of view, this LP is truly varied: from the classic deathrock songs (from the very recognizable Kandian songwriting) "She Never Woke Up", "The Millennium Unwind" and "Obscene Kiss" revisited, let's say, in a modern key (therefore with some electronics for support), to monstrous combinations of African tribal rites and rock as in "The Origin of Man", passing through the wonderful Middle Eastern atmospheres of "The Lie Behind the Truth", and therefore for the danceable electro gothic metal of "I Weave My Spell".

Also noteworthy are the presence of two covers in the second act, namely the sexy and allusive "Washing Machine" (of which, however, I found no other useful information to discover the original performers) and the blatantly perverse "Sex Dwarf" by Soft Cell's Marc Almond: the latter, compared to the original, has acquired greater sonic vigor due to the use of distorted guitars and a more masculine singing.

In the last act, the sounds become more subdued and dramatic, depressed and romantic, as in the fine suite "Die With You" and in the industrial-like "Pillars of Osiris" (which would not have been at all out of place in the soundtrack of "The Silence of the Lambs," in my opinion) as well as in the already mentioned "She Never Woke Up".

In conclusion, we can say that we are faced with an album in which there are many original and insightful ideas, whose only flaw is not being elaborated in such a way as to fully explore the good it brings with it, in which the listener does not actually find a common thread to connect all the meat on the fire present and make the LP less heterogeneous and disjointed (despite it being a concept): taking the individual acts, the communion of intents can be perceived, but overall the work remains dissonant in its various components. Nevertheless, from a purely musical level (that is, song by song), our "Pornoghraphic Messiah" is certainly an interesting and intriguing album, much better than what preceded and followed it in the recent discography of Christian Death.

Even though everyone hates him, try giving the old Valor Kand a chance, he might surprise you.