Death In June
All Pigs Must Die

Poor "All Pigs Must Die"... considered by many as the first real misstep of Death in June, in my opinion, it is not as bad as it is painted. It would be worth buying just for the cover, which depicts Douglas P. himself with a mask and camo in a dollhouse with pink walls, in the act of slitting the throat of a stuffed pig, knife in hand!

Sure, I add, it is truly incredible how this artist, fanatically idolized on one hand and scornfully opposed on the other, proves to be the first to not take himself too seriously, mocking precisely that choreographic apparatus that has contributed so much, for better or worse, to the creation of his own myth. A great one!

So, while the ironic flair can certainly be appreciated, there is an undeniable fact that we are facing a not very inspired work, born more out of playfulness than true artistic urgency. After all, the Douglas P. of 2001 is no longer a fragile and complexed young man, but rather he appears as a chubby middle-aged man who has put on a few extra pounds and seems to have found inner peace in the now established Australian dimension, among kangaroos, koalas, and his friend Boyd Rice who visits him from time to time. And it is precisely at this juncture that good old Douglas decides it's the right time to clear some things off his chest, to settle some accounts with the past... yes, accounts, the kind your accountant considers, as "All Pigs Must Die" is nothing more than a pretext to vilify those vile bastards attached to the pay of World Serpent (his old record label), with whom there's obviously an open financial dispute. Certainly not the pinnacle of poetry. Thus unraveling the mystery of who the pigs mentioned in the title are, we are left to address the strictly musical sphere.

The album is structured in two perfectly distinct and mirrored parts: one folk and one noise. The first side retrieves the acoustic formula, momentarily shelved with the duo "Take Care and Control" and "Operation: Hummingbird" (born from the collaboration with Albin Julius, who substantially forced Death in June's sound towards the industrial martial and Wagnerian shores of his Der Blutharsch). To the delight of the nostalgics, here we find six tracks in the typical "But, What Ends/Rose Clouds" style, with generally more relaxed and at times cheerful tones, which will surely disappoint the lovers of tense and decadent atmospheres. Tracks resting on the now well-known guitar chords and Douglas's dark and monolithic voice, here enhanced by the flute and accordion of Andreas Ritter (of Forseti), which greatly accentuates the folk/popular element, giving the tracks a certain cross-border flavor. Also worth mentioning is the trumpet of Campbell Finley, already present in "But, What Ends..." and "Rose Clouds...", and Boyd Rice's deep voice, called upon to introduce some tracks occasionally, such as happens in "We Said Destroy II", which opens with a parody of the Three Little Pigs fairy tale, a recurring theme throughout the work.

Not bad, I'd say: about twenty minutes that flow quite well, where overall Douglas seems to recycle himself less than elsewhere, emphasizing his ironic and grotesque side, which only occasionally emerged in past productions. The title track, which starts the show, is a bit of a symbol of this new trend: spurred on by the trumpet and the irresistible refrain, it's quite a nice little song to whistle on a bike ride in spring. But don't worry too much, as tracks like the paranoid and grotesque "Tick Tock" (continuing in the vein of the title track) and the reflective "The Enemy Within", do not pale among the group's classics, proving, if there was still a need, the uniqueness of a spontaneous and sincere artist, whose art is able to represent all the different facets of his complex personality, without losing coherence.

The second side, on the other hand, is marked by the most uncompromising noise, and not coincidentally there's the hand of Boyd Rice, who performs a real butchery of the material given to him by his friend, perhaps short on inspiration to craft something entirely on his own. Inspiration that does not seem to lack for Rice himself, who perhaps delivers his most convincing effort: an attentive and curated work of sampling and manipulation, inevitably coloring the remainder of the work with the dark and threatening hues of Non. The five tracks, fused seamlessly, present themselves as a single and disturbing delirium, a monolith of anguish and chaos where moments from the first section are revisited, mutilated, and transfigured under an experimental and hallucinatory lens. And so, "With Bad Blood" is nothing more than "Tick Tock" in slowed-down form, distorted and tainted by a thousand noises, while "We Said Destroy III" is "We Destroy II" under the same treatment.

The rest is a sound magma where electric guitars, voices, grunts, and more are massacred to the limits of listenability, producing an effect not far removed from certain experiments of Masami Akita, better known as Merzbow (a follower not coincidentally of Rice himself, someone who's been making noise for almost thirty years!). It's the case with "Lord of the Sties", which transforms Douglas's guitar chaos into a duel between a grindstone and a drill, or "No Pig Day", perhaps the most disturbing and sick moment of the work. The closure is left to the menacing atmospheres of "Ride Out!", in typical Non style.

In short, it is certainly not the deepest work of Death in June, and certainly not comparable to the illustrious chapters of the glorious past, but in the end, the bitter taste remains only due to this ruthless comparison, because, considered as a standalone, the volume at hand stands a notch above the rest of the scene (to put it plainly: always better than the works of Ordo Equilibrio, In my Rosary, Forseti, Der Blutharsch, and the like).

It is true that here an operation of recycling cubed is done (the first section recycles the past, and the second recycles the first in a crazy remix!), something that may seriously suggest a creative impasse from our man. But if tackled with the right approach, this "All Pigs Must Die" can offer its satisfactions, especially in the part entrusted to Rice's experiments. And then, let's be honest: we've eaten so much and so well at the house of Death in June, we're so full and satisfied, that if for dessert we're served a half-warmed brioche, it doesn't seem right to get upset. No(n)?