Death In June
Peaceful Snow

I won't deny that every Death in June release is a real shock for me, even though I haven't held great expectations for Douglas P.'s work for the past few releases.

For heaven's sake, an album by Death in June is always something I make myself like, and so I end up liking it systematically, but then comes the moment of honesty, and beyond the passion of being an irreducible fan, it's undeniable that it's been since the pair “Take Care and Control”/”Operation: Hummingbird” that Douglas P. has been unable to publish something convincing.

Piano. Voice.

The fact that the latest album by Death in June arises from the collaboration with Slovak pianist Miro Snejdr is a novelty, at least on paper, that cannot be underestimated: it indeed piques a certain curiosity, and knowing the poor health state Douglas P. has been in for some years now, the choice seems wise, especially after the “isolationist” acceleration of the previous work, that “The Rule of Thirds” which was hailed as a return to the glorious past, but instead slipped out like a pale ghost. Honest, but inconsistent.

The skin changes, then, but not the substance, because if we replaced the old guitar with the piano, the result wouldn't change much. This is because, more than a proper collaboration (since there wasn't a real exchange/interaction between the two artists, just a simple back and forth of material between Adelaide and Bratislava), the contribution of a musician like Miro Snejdr only served to give a new guise to songs that seem to come from the “The Rule of Thirds” sessions (same writing, same moods, same ideas, same boring refrains).

This is confirmed by the work method that led to the publication of “Peaceful Snow”: legend has it that Pearce met Miro Snejdr through the internet, struck by a YouTube video capturing a piano reinterpretation of “The Glass Coffin” by the same pianist. After getting in touch, Pearce simply handed over to the Slovak a bundle of songs conceived for voice and guitar, songs that the pianist skillfully reworked and rearranged with devotion, then returned them to the original owner, who finally did nothing but add his voice, some choirs, and a few effects (not much, truth be told).

Snejdr's performance is impeccable, his flow on the ivory keys is precious: class, elegance, and talent are undeniable; what doesn't convince is the substance of the songs, which often struggle to reconcile the pianist's virtuosity (between jazz and classical) with Pearce's sparse recitals, as if there is a bewildering fracture between the “baroque”, cheerful structure, and the vocal minimalism (and in this, the mediocre album opening entrusted to the colorless “Murder Made History” is eloquent).

With the second track, the minimal “Fire Feast”, things improve a bit, but as the tracks progress, it's inevitable to sense the same compositional fatigue that penalized its predecessor. And so if “The Rule of Thirds” could be defined as the album of senility for Douglas P., this 2010 work seems to be the album of his definitive passing: Pearce walks in an ice necropolis, where ghosts, missing persons (such as the father figure), and even corpses can be encountered. And among them, Pearce's own corpse seems to be discernible, already in an advanced state of decay, wanting to tell us about a past, a world perceived with an abysmal and definitive detachment. However, Pearce heads towards the Afterlife with a gentlemanly step, which must be acknowledged: memories have now replaced the pure and simple and bitter acknowledgment of a present that no longer belongs to him. From his Australian bunker, Pearce tells us about his state of isolation through his usual beautiful lyrics, filled with a cynicism and sarcasm that no longer taste of bile, but of a resignation to a state of things so “precipitated” that there's nothing left but to laugh. It's just as well to walk through these circles whistling and singing “pa pa paaaa”, something that happens consistently in “Life Under Siege”. And if generally it's easier to write a recipe book with blood, paradoxically Pearce manages to engrave an epitaph with honey, much like what happened (with different results) in certain episodes of “Rose Clouds of Holocaust”.

But beware: the existential rift that opens an album like “Peaceful Snow” is nonetheless deeper than what any other disciple within apocalyptic folk can afford today. So much that it no longer makes sense to talk about apocalyptic folk (“Peaceful Snow” is not an apocalyptic folk album), but of pure Pearce music, decay that no longer decays, but has decayed. Deceased. Definitively fallen apart.

If the motto “It is the fate of our age that we fight in isolation” is true, Pearce remains the most consistent champion of our times. And in the confinement of his bunker, the self-imposed exile in neutral Australia, the wall of sacrifice erected and carried to excess, Pearce has had and still has plenty of time to think: a thought that reflects on itself, stagnating for lack of stimuli other than its own interiority. A reflection that can only degenerate into self-referentiality. This can also mean artistic nothingness, but if Pearce has lost the ability to translate his discomfort into true art, it doesn't mean his existential journey has stopped. And in his existential condition, fighting in isolation can mean many things: the loss of the sense of time, for example, so that minutes become months, and months become years, so much that Pearce seems to have walked through entire millennia in his solitude, eroding entire geological eras, and perhaps it all seems so incomprehensible to us precisely because Pearce is now millions of years ahead of us. Even further away from everything, even further away from all of us.

But the bunker Pearce has locked himself in unfortunately becomes a tomb from which there is no resurrection. And this is a shame, as it's proof that Pearce died first as a Man before as an Artist. Probably his reluctance in playing the second role directly stems from that in playing the first. And if his music no longer shines, it's because the fractures of the past are no longer as tearing as before, but are covered, blocked by impenetrable layers of invincible ice.

“Peaceful Snow” is thus an icy album, a flat snow-covered area, without trees or houses: a journey into the depths of interiority boasting glacial and evocative atmospheres (the atmospheres, alas, better than the tracks); and if “The Rules of Third” was a spring work, here we can claim to be in a desolate winter of the soul, where roads no longer trodden are covered by a thick layer of snow. From beneath the snow, Pearce sings us his hell: no longer a condition of existential tragedy, but a flat, aseptic condition, devoid of any hope that could light the way.

Ultimately, the result ends up appearing inconsistent (soporific, for example, the succession of tracks like “Wolf Rose” and “The Scents of Genocide”). However, there is no lack of flashes: such is the case with the title track (of caveian intensity), from which the entire work seems to flow. Or from other, sporadic episodes (“A Nausea”, “Red Odin Day”, “My Company of Corpses”) that still manage to give the ancient thrill, but don't lift an album that is substantially prolix, as “The Rule of Thirds” was, which remains the last fragile link between the glorious apocalyptic folk that was, and this sort of singer-songwriter turn that Pearce has definitively launched into, grotesque like a diver dancing in slow motion during a smooth dance contest: a path in some respects surreal, increasingly close to a personal diary recounting terrible truths in an unassuming and sly style, at times tinged with a desperate carefreeness.

A diary that fades as it progresses, but that offers us one last good page, that “The Maverick Chamber”, a tragic and imposing piano ballad, which had anticipated the album's release in the eponymous seven-inch, generating expectations that were largely unmet.

P.S. As an appendix to the work, there is a second entirely instrumental CD (“Lounge Corps”) featuring piano-only versions of Death in June classics, drawn from various albums of the band, not neglecting even “The Rule of Thirds”, through which Miro Snedjr, a last-minute fan, seems to have become acquainted with Death in June. A fun experiment, if you like, but it ends up providing no added value to the package, especially considering the importance that lyrics have always had in Death in June's music.