Death in June
Take Care & Control

With "Take Care & Control" begins the downward trajectory of Douglas P's artistic path. This truly marks the start of the collaboration era, symptomatic of an impending decline in inspiration that would characterize the final phase of Death in June's career. However, what emerges is paradoxically an extremely significant work of undeniable charm. Shocking for those who (rightly) expect a sound and wholesome apocalyptic folk from the band, "Take Care & Control" from 1998 sees a drastic departure from the acoustic sounds that had brought the band's fortune, opting instead for a much harsher turn towards a martial industrial sound that is far removed from the haunting and claustrophobic noise explorations of their early career.

Probably running out of ideas, Douglas Pearce decides to call upon a talented young man, the Viennese Albin Julius, to inject some freshness into a formula that has become well-worn: Julius, the mind behind the post-industrial project Der Blutharsch, doesn't need to be asked twice and with loving reverence bows at the feet of his master, offering all his talent. From this collaboration, an album that is truly original, I dare say unique, is born, certainly standing a notch above the entire scene (including Der Blutharsch themselves). This is because, where Douglas Pearce shows evident compositional fatigue, the formidable technical background of Julius, a superb assembler of sounds and suggestions, comes to the rescue. And where Julius's music sounds like a hollow (and self-serving) celebration of war, Douglas P. brings it back to a much deeper existential dimension. Yes, because although Julius's hand is well-present and recognizable, "Take Care & Control" sounds 100% like Death in June, carrying with it the visions, ghosts, and moods that have always characterized Death in June's music.

The first four tracks are anthology material: "Smashed to Bits (in the Peace of the Night") with its robust orchestrations is the most epically tragic piece to come out of a Death in June album, while "Little Blue Butterfly," enhanced by minimal ethnic counterpoints, allows the band's never fully dormant esoteric component to re-emerge. And it is interesting to encounter, between one and the other, the voice of Jeanne Moreau who intones "Each man kills the things he loves," a quote borrowed from Fassbinder's cult film "Querelle de Brest", itself taken from the eponymous novel by Jean Genet, which later became an underground manifesto of gay culture. Yes, because "Take Care & Control" is also the album where the mask partly falls, where Douglas Pearce-the-man reveals himself more than in the past, openly showcasing, among other things, his homosexuality, which was never hidden (some, for example, see this aspect as a determining factor in the choice of the monicker "Death in June", inspired by the "Night of the Long Knives," the infamously notorious Nazi massacre that foreshadowed the rise to power of Hitler’s National Socialist party and involved the annihilation of internal opposition within the party itself, including several homosexuals, whose presence was deemed unacceptable by Hitler).

The subsequent "The Bunker" is instead the manifesto of solitude, or better yet, of isolation, and in three and a half minutes says what Pink Floyd express in the legendary "The Wall": indeed, the discourse goes far beyond as the one-dimensional concept of the wall is here surpassed by the all-encompassing idea of an envelope, the bunker precisely, which envelops the individual, precluding all external contact. A vision which, extended to the entire humanity ("You're alone, We're alone, They're alone, They're all alone" the sparse lyrics recite), outlines a chilling reality, where the social world is nothing but a dense hive in which any kind of communication and emotional exchange is impossible. But this song, of disarming despair, also definitively confirms Pearce's skill in being able to decline elements belonging to the war imagery into a private and existential dimension. So that a concept like solitude cloaks itself in the dark and desolate tones of emotions evoked by the stark representation of war catastrophe.

"Kameraschaft," the only acoustic interlude, is another classic destined to remain long in the live setlists, bringing us back, not without nostalgia, to the more typically folk Death in June, although for the occasion quite brooding and updated to the unsettling and threatening moods of the album.

The work continues quite respectably, amidst citations, craftsmanship, and a bit of self-satisfaction, like a meta-textual essay, in which Death in June, being fully aware of being Death in June, talks about Death in June. Julius patches things up here in his finest performance: his skill is truly admirable in assembling sounds, orchestrations, and samples of all kinds in a variable and intelligent manner, fitting perfectly with Douglas P.'s voice and finishing work. Thus, between the soft tones of "Frost Flowers" and the percussive assaults of "A Slaughter of Roses," the eight icy and desolate minutes of "The November Men" are reached, an exhausting treatise on the malaise of living that opens symbolically with the languid revving of a motorcycle (of those ugly thirties with the sidecar, we imagine), culminating in the desperate cries of the finale, perhaps the most explicit moment of pain in Pearce's entire artistic production.

Unfortunately, as the listener progresses, they inevitably feel the fatigue caused by the excessive monotony of the tracks: the perfect constructs of "Power Has a Fragrance," "Despair," and "The Odin Hour" certainly create atmosphere, but do not provide particular thrills, and the album, in the end, commits a real suicide: Douglas vanishes, leaving Julius only to quote and self-quote: "The Bunker, Empty" is an instrumental reprise of the almost homonymous song, significant as much as you like, but truly exhausting placed at the end of the album. "Wolf Angel," on the other hand, is the white noise assault that had opened the dance and has, over time, returned to damage our ears between one piece and another, as a (theme?) leitmotif of the work. The five minutes of fascist march in loop of "Circo Massimo" could have been spared.

For many, this album will probably not be appealing: for its continuous right-wing references, it is undoubtedly the most extreme, stylistically and conceptually, episode of Death in June. Personally speaking, I must admit it took quite a while to digest it, but once I got into the required mood, and paid the deserved bow before the portrait of Lenin, before and after each listening, the work reveals itself as an interesting journey through the aestheticism of Death: Douglas P. was not the first and will certainly not be the last to weave a link between Death and Beauty, nevertheless, more than any other, this work shines with sensuality, a sprightly eroticism, an aesthetic self-satisfaction (confirmed by the photo in the internal booklet portraying Douglas P. in déshabillé, wearing nothing but a helmet and a pair of sunglasses), making it undoubtedly one of the most daring attempts to reconnect Eros and Thanatos. But not, mind you, by obscuring and polluting Love with uncontrollable Death urges (as often happens in the rock universe), but by cloaking Death itself in the beauty of Love. And if we prefer to understand war (if it is even possible to grasp it for those who have not experienced it) through the harrowing and profound pages of Remarque, what remains is the passionate defense of one's ideals against the rampant corruption.

Douglas P.'s is a lesson in integrity, coherence, and strict rigor, and the notes of Death in June, here more than ever, express the necessity to pursue an ideal of purity, the strength to resist and not to yield, the acceptance of one's responsibilities. The choice of solitude and escape from the world, if necessary, regardless of what convictions drive our conduct.