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Rating: "To All Those Who Fight in Isolation"
Dedicated to all those who fight in isolation.
And then Douglas P., camouflage and gas mask, with a glass of white wine in hand as a toast. The glory of Nothing, the glory of Silence.
How can one not feel sympathy and eternal respect, or even compassion, for this man who, in solitude (indeed, in isolation!), outside the world, in distant Australia, perpetuates his struggle for psychic, emotional, existential survival.
How can one not recognize oneself, at least a little, in this solitary crusade against ghosts, children of a world that seems to disown us, defeated but not redeemed; how can one not feel united, in solidarity among all of us solitary climbers of our Calvaries, tyrants and prisoners, kapos of our worlds, entities unto themselves, yet connected by a terrible invisible thread: that of inadequacy, that of the bitterness that marks the distance between what is and what we wish it would be.
One pays for one's own hell alone: this is what Douglas P. seems to have always preached, a victim of an individualism elevated to such a point that it sinks into pathology; a man now far from the crises of the past, far from that Europe he loved so much and from which he was repudiated, yet always stubbornly, incorrigibly alone in bearing the weight of his own existence.
Melbourne (Australia), July 9 1999: "Heilige!"
"Heilige!" is a live recording from the promotional tour of "Take Care and Control," the album that in '98 marks a sharp stylistic turn in the artistic journey of Death in June, landing on the harsh post-industrial style in Blutharsch fashion. And accompanying Pearce in this live setting is the primary architect of this change: friend/disciple Albin Julius, commander-in-chief of the battleship Der Blutharsch, here called to juggle tapes, keyboards, backing vocals, and percussion. Lending a hand: percussionist John Murphy, a long-time friend of the Death in June family, a fixture in Death in June tours in recent years.
"Heilige!" comes to our ears bare and essential, totally devoid of studio tweaks, frills, or overdubs of any kind: "Heilige!" is an authentic, real, live work, absolutely uncounterfeited. In this lies its strengths and weaknesses.
But let's proceed in order.
The performance can ideally be divided into two moments.
In the first, the industrial side of the band emerges: understandably, the set-list focuses on pieces written with Julius. "Take Care and Control," the album to promote, brilliantly passes the live test, despite the massive yet necessary use of tapes and pre-recorded parts. Credit to an inspired vocal interpretation by Pearce and Murphy's explosive percussion, which revitalize tracks that would otherwise feel excessively cold and cerebral: "Smashed to Bits (in the Peace of the Night)," "Despair," "The Bunker," "Little Blue Butterfly," "Frost Flowers" thus make a significant impression, strong in powerful and raw sounds and a declamatory vigor that had no chance to emerge so vividly in the studio.
Among the tracks of "Take Care and Control," a minimal version of "Bring in the Night" (from "Wall of Sacrifice"), reduced to voice and percussion only, also takes space, along with an excellent reinterpretation of "Only Europa Knows" (from "Kapo!"), completely transformed: if the studio version appeared to us as a bleak and atmospheric acoustic ballad, here we see it resurrect in the chaos of percussion and sirens and the compelling hymns of Pearce and Julius.
What to say: this first section of the album is truly good, where the band proves capable of recreating live atmospheres that are not exactly stage-like, and reinventing, sometimes completely overhauling, tracks that are genuinely difficult to envision in a live setting.
Less convincing is the remaining portion of the album, an acoustic set that retraces the entire history of Death in June.
It starts right away with heavyweights such as "Death of the West" and "Heaven Street," but we immediately realize something is wrong: the sounds are poor and poorly equalized, percussion overshadows the guitar, Julius's contribution turns out to be more harmful than useful (disastrous the keyboard incursions, irritating the sound effects that undermine the acoustic charm of the pieces!).
"Little Black Angel," "Kameradschaft," "Giddy Giddy Carousel," "Ku Ku Ku" thus flow between the anonymous and the irritating (especially when thinking of the original versions), and even masterpieces like "Runes and Men" and "Rose Clouds of Holocaust" do not seem to pass the test, primarily due to a hurried and approximate execution.
The recovery is partial in the finale with ultra-classics like "Hullo Angel," "Leper Lord," "Fall Apart" and "Fields of Rape," whose renditions, although they present nothing sensational, on the other hand do not harm the original and effective simplicity of the pieces with foolish arrangements.
Grand finale with "C'est un Rêve," which revives industrial loops and closes the 50 minutes of this live in the spirit of the overbearing tribalism of military drums.
What to say in conclusion? A not excellent work, which might be of interest exclusively to those who consider themselves a completist fan of the band, or to those who never had the opportunity to hear Death in June live (an opportunity that will not occur again, given that Douglas P. does not seem inclined to undertake new tours at the moment).
Absolutely forbidden, instead, to those who do not know the band: as a first approach, the double "Discriminate" is rather advisable, an exhaustive overview of the good that Pearce has achieved in the first fifteen years of his far-sighted career.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
09 Heaven Street (03:34)
Take a walk down Heaven Street
The soil is soft and the air smells sweet
Paul is waiting there
And so is Franz
Now only memories run on railway tracks.
This road leads to Heaven.
Waiting feet frozen to the ground
The earth exploding with the gas of bodies
Rifle butts
To crush you down
Now only flowers
To idolize.
This road leads to Heaven
12 Giddy Giddy Carousel (01:39)
Our love is
Our love is
Beyond fulfilment
Beyond despair
The ultimate faith
The ultimate betrayal
And Europa has burned
And will burn again
Giddy giddy carousel
Giddy giddy carousel
The blood of his dreams
The dreams of this youth
For the master-slave
For the one-step men
The right of confession
The rites of confusion
Expect no more
This love burns life
Giddy giddy carousel
Giddy giddy carousel
13 Ku Ku Ku (01:32)
Open up you mind
And ku ku ku, baby
And time will stand still for you
Seize the end of time
And ku ku ku, baby
See, it will be mine
And ku ku ku, baby
I will bleed into the blind
So ku ku ku, baby
And time will stand still for you
Open up you mind
And ku ku ku, baby...
14 Runes and Men (02:24)
With your hair of flaming Roses
Your kiss - Medusa's touch
Turn me to a pillar of salt
To die now would be perfection
Then my lonliness closes in
So, I drink a German wine
And drift in dreams of other lives
And greater times
White sheets wrap my mind
In drunken thoughts of runes and men
Why does the devil leave for us
This legacy of lonliness
This cry for the moon
And a dagger's thrust
With your hair of flaming blooms
And your eyes of saintly dusk
Then my lonliness closes in
So, I drink a German wine
And drift in dreams of other lives
And greater times...
16 Hullo Angel (01:25)
Well, Hullo Angel
A Gift and a Smile
Well, Hullo Angel
As We walk a Crooked mile
And a Twisted Man
Leans on twisted sticks
With children's laughter
Hanging from swings
Well, Hullo Angel
And the skipping rope turns
Whilst little bodies twist
In carousel swerves
Well, Hullo Angel
It's the End of The World
Well, Hullo Angel
At the End of your Tether
Well, Hullo Angel
Time for Sleep
Well, Hullo Angel
Time for Prayers
That which is Falling
Should also be Pushed
That which is Crawling
Should also be Crushed!
17 Leper Lord (01:04)
There he stood
At the edge of the world
Snatching
The sun from the sky
Oh, leper lord
My leper lord
Make the angels cry
The black clouds melts
As eagles stalk
Tearing
To bits the lie
Oh, leper lord
My leper lord
Make the angels cry
18 Fall Apart (02:26)
And if I wake from Dreams
Shall I fall in Pastures
Will I Wake the Darkness
Shall we Torch the Earth?
And if I wake from Dreams
Shall we find the Emptiness
And break the Silence
That will stop our Hearts?
And if I wake from Dreams
Shall we cry Together
For their Howling echoes
And restart the Night?
And why did you say
That things shall fall
And fall and fall and fall
And fall apart?
And why did you say
That things shall fall
And fall and fall and fall
And fall apart?
And shall I wake from Dreams
For the Glory of Nothing
For the cracking of the Sun
For the crawling down of Lies?
And if We fall from Dreams
Shall we push them into Darkness
And stare into the Howling
And clamber into Night?
And if I fall from Dreams
All my Prayers are Silenced
To Love is to lose
And to lose is to Die...
And why did you say
That things shall fall
And fall and fall and fall
And fall apart?
And why did you say
That we shall fall
And fall and fall and fall
And fall apart?
And why did you say
That things shall fall
And fall and fall and fall
And fall apart?
And why did you say
That we shall fall
And fall and fall and fall
And fall apart?
And why did you say
That things shall fall?
19 Fields of Rape (02:44)
In a foreign land
In a foreign time
Reaping time had come
I'm falling back into
Fields of rape
I'm falling back into
Fields of rape
We're falling back into
Fields of rape, my love
And this was the way
And those were the horrors
As father went reaping
I'm falling back into
Fields of rape
I'm falling back into
Fields of rape
We're falling back into
Fields of rape, my love
Crushed, crushed, crushed
Mother bleeding
Crushed, crushed, crushed
We stand grinning
In a foreign land
In a foreign time
Reaping time had come
20 C'est un Rêve (03:41)
Ou est Klaus Barbie
Ou est Klaus Barbie
Il est dans le coeur
Il est dans le coeur noir
Liberte
C'est un reve
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