Death In June
The Snow Bunker Tapes

“Peaceful Snow” was a modest album, yet somehow I managed to like it: in the winter of 2010, I was coming out of a very troubled romantic relationship, I moved to another city, and throughout this, the icy and desolate “Peaceful Snow” was the impeccable soundtrack. Coincidentally, during that time, it even snowed (a rare thing in my area), so the moods of that album had a chance to reflect on the white blanket covering the roads, houses, things, the environment around and within me. Miro Snejdr's elegant piano was the ideal counterpoint.

In the spring of 2013, “The Snow Bunker Tapes” was released, nothing more than the collection of tapes Douglas P. sent to Snejdr so he could write the piano parts and arrange them; those tracks, of guitar and vocals and little else, were the embryo that led to “Peaceful Snow,” the invisible backbone of that album, a sketch thrown together for the exclusive use of Pearce and his collaborator, an unfinished work that sees the light today.

I'll say it right away: there are valid reasons to calmly ignore this last chapter of the endless Death in June saga, and these reasons are more numerous and more substantial than those that might lead one to approach it, which remains essentially the exclusive domain of the band's most completist fans.

It is inevitable that faced with such an operation, carried out by an artist who has been experiencing an irretrievable creative block for about fifteen years, the suspicion arises, even in the mind of the least malicious listener, that Pearce is desperately scraping the bottom of the barrel, hoping to keep his limping creature alive by exploiting a brand that, despite the downward spiral, still maintains a strong appeal in the field.

Secondly, the re-proposal of tracks presented not even three years ago certainly does not constitute a highly attractive move, not even for the fans themselves, considering also that “Peaceful Snow” was received quite lukewarmly.

Thirdly, finally, putting ourselves on a strictly personal level, the argument I made at the beginning applies: I had somehow grown attached to the compositions of “Peaceful Snow,” in the form in which they were set up, with Snejdr's beautiful piano giving the album a particular charm and definitely an unprecedented flavor for a Death in June work. Faced with an operation like “The Snow Bunker Tapes,” there arises the fear of a disastrous emotional backlash that ends up contaminating the original album.

What can I say, my friends, in the end, curiosity prevailed: I thus made “The Snow Bunker Tapes” my own as well. Disappointment? Not disappointment? Of course, expectations were very low, practically nil, but what is reassuring is that at least the two albums paradoxically sound very different, evoking different sensations and almost never colliding. There is no confusion or overlap between the two dimensions: “Peaceful Snow” was an elegant, refined album, today it seems like a monument compared to this “The Snow Bunker Tapes,” a bare, direct album, stripped of frills, but one that nonetheless has the merit of being able to describe with greater vigor the epic of Douglas P.'s solitude, a key element of his artistic and existential crusade.

Looking at the glass half-full, we might sense an urgency on Douglas P.'s part to reclaim a very intimate and personal album, “divided in half” with Snejdr: if “The Rule of Thirds” was Pearce's return to a more strictly singer-songwriter dimension after the season of collaborations, and “The Peaceful Snow” a partial “deviation” towards that same ground of artistic sharing that had become the standard formula of Death in June in the last fifteen years (a fake collaboration, in truth, since Snejdr's involvement was after the writing process and the two never met during the album's production phase), “The Snow Bunker Tapes” abruptly picks up the path taken with “The Rule of Thirds,” presenting us with the author in his role as the mastermind of his creation. Those who liked (didn't dislike) that album will probably like (won't dislike) this one as well, although here Pearce's minimalism/hermeticism pushes even further.

It is therefore difficult to assert with certainty whether “The Snow Bunker Tapes” is a good, bad, interesting, or dignified album, worthy of being listened to at least once, or just a waste of time: the judgment becomes fluid and fluctuating, at times this work frankly sounds embarrassing, other times “nice” (well aware that the term “nice” is certainly not the most appropriate to describe a Death in June album). Embarrassing because it is a real sadness to find such carelessness in the work of an artist who, with his experience and the history behind him, could have all the means and cunning to put together an album that at least does not harm the dignity of those who listen (even if Pearce has never been a perfectionist: he probably remains a punk at heart; just remember that the transition from punk to the acoustic dimension of folk - and hence the coining of a new genre, apocalyptic folk - was dictated by a fortuitous event, namely the mere theft of Pearce's electric guitar, which then forced him, in the absence of anything else, to fall back on the cheap acoustic guitar at his disposal). But back to us: was it not possible to do better? I mean, at least tune the guitar? After all, these are demos that Pearce has only subjected to mastering, without retouches or additives. However, leaving the ticking of the metronome at the start of some tracks is a choice dangerously suspended between absolute intransigence (always appreciated) and the always deplorable mockery.

On the other hand, it is also true that Pearce's ramshackle ballads continue to shine with an intrinsic magnetism that we can hardly explain. If Death in June's music today is more than ever music of solitude, then this bizarre form of singer-songwriter expression is its most consistent manifestation: thirteen ballads of only voice and guitar, with some embellishment thrown in that ultimately does more harm than good (horrible keyboard sounds, useless rhythms). Pearce's ghostly voice is reverberated and often doubled by himself, making the artist seem even more distant and remote, whose dark and robotic voice clashes with the often cheerful and sunny tunes of the guitar. If in “Peaceful Snow” the cold was tangible, in “The Snow Bunker Tapes” (also penalized by the time of its release: today, for example, it would be better to go to the beach rather than skiing) this cold is not felt at all, leaving only the disorienting feeling that what you are listening to is neither singer-songwriter music nor dark or apocalyptic folk, although the acoustic guise and the grand brand might mislead.

As already stated elsewhere, it is nothing other than Pearcian music, as its author aims at self-referentiality: an emotional and artistic bunker that nevertheless risks imprisoning Pearce the artist, mired in the hostile shallows of a solipsism that no longer seems to be a welcomed thing even among the most die-hard fans. And so “The Snow Bunker Tapes,” which suffers from the same compositional weakness as its predecessors, cannot lift the fortunes of a declining artistic parabola, and instead ends up being, to date, its lowest point. “Murder Made Hystory” was verbose and verbose it remains, much like all other twelve tracks, except for a few episodes: such as the title track, which in “Peaceful Snow” was an intense ballad with Cavean outlines, and today becomes a sly ride in typical late Death in June style. If the “lalalala” in the refrain of “Red Odin Day” is even amusing, showing us a Pearce truly far from the dark stylistic elements of apocalyptic folk he himself coined, “Our Ghosts Gather” gains points compared to the original, showing a ruthless essay of Pearcian determination/self-affirmation. The opening of the final “The Maverick Chamber,” finally, almost revives the ghost of the classic “But, What Ends When the Symbols Shatter?,” too bad that it then falls back into the same guitar pattern that since “Alarm Agents” seems to be proposed again with criminal carelessness by Our Man: the album thus ends leaving the listener with a heavy, inevitable sense of deja-vu. Luckily, one thinks that Snejdr's talent was called upon (a nice “toppino”), because frankly an acoustic Pearce album, under these conditions, would have been another step into the endless abyss in which the glorious father of apocalyptic folk is mercilessly falling.

For many, this album will thus sound like yet another dull commercial operation of an artist long gone who tries to exploit his band's good name out of time. For the few others, it could be an interesting pause to indulge in while awaiting the next Death in June album. Not to mention a “nice” background to play in the car while heading to the beach.

Anything but snow....