Der Blutharsch
The Pleasures Received in Pain

The first self-titled work highlighted the excellent qualities of Albin Julius as a rising star in the post-industrial scene and a skilled architect of gloomy war devastation scenarios. The subsequent “Der Sieg des Lichtes ist der Lebens Heil” undoubtedly defined the contours of the Der Blutharsch sound in all its power and irreverence. But next to such "big brothers," this “The Pleasures Received in Pain,” released in 1999, ends up playing the part of the silly little brother. An impression that grows stronger when compared to the giant of its successor: “The Track of the Hunted,” which will probably represent the masterpiece of maturity in the faltering career of the Viennese artist. “The Pleasures Received in Pain” is undoubtedly the weak link in the first part of Blutharsch's career.

And yet, it started well, with the strident notes of a detuned violin, the typical obsessive orchestrations, and the tolling of a heavy death knell. In short, everything as per script, with the additional histrionic touch of Julius's jaunty violin animating the heavy evolutions of his army of sounds. But from the next track, something seems off: where did the consistency that characterized Albin Julius’s steps until now go? Where is the power of the sounds that had clouded our minds? The grim martiality, the sonic intransigence, the impetuous advance?

The scenario before us is instead something with poorly defined contours, a blurred image, an uncoordinated ensemble that would like to carry forward the message forged in previous works but in reality, only manages to be a shadow of them: the same problem that will characterize Albin Julius’s path from “When All Else Fails!” onwards, in what I believe will be a tragic and steep downward spiral, culminating in the mediocrity of the latest works.

Julius sings, and a lot, in this album: and this is already not a good thing, considering that our artist is not a singer, that he is off-key even when he speaks, and that his voice pretty much sucks. The electronics become rough, contaminated by a whimsical folk that would like to make our proposal more astute, seemingly intent on abandoning trench moods to lock himself in an inn and drink beer with jovial merrymen: in short, the incredible battleship Der Blutharsch seems to give way to a troop of clumsy comrades. The capacity to hurt and wound, mind you, is still there, but overall Julius seems to be taking the wrong path to insert (modest) elements of novelty in his proposal. His new work manages to still be the “blackest” industrial we can imagine, pedantically marching on the usual martially strong electronic patterns dense with samples; but probably the choice to cover a wider range of action, the use of new weapons, imposes on the commander corrections in the attack strategy: many shots miss, while big gaps emerge in what should be an ambitious advance, to the extent that at times the artist finds himself forced into a clamorous retreat. So much so as to regress to his prehistory (the siliconized folk of his The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud - and it's no coincidence that in the same year “Gold Gab Ich fur Eisen” comes out, rehashing material from Julius's early artistic phase), or even to retreat to positions in the meantime conquered by his “protégés” Derniére Volonté, discovered and launched by him. With results not always convincing: because Julius may also be a good violinist, but we much prefer him behind his tapes, his vinyls, and his laptops weaving horrendous war scenarios. While behind the microphone, as was said, we can draw a veil of pity.

Nonetheless, it's not a total disaster this “The Pleasures Received in Pain,” as we find, in the central part, signs of recovery: like tracks 7 and 8, in which we are pleasantly overwhelmed by swirling percussions and monumental crescendos invigorated by grim operatic choirs and earthquaking orchestrations. Or tracks 9 and 10, which, after the peaks reached by the previous songs, make us crawl in the muddy ground of an abysmal and claustrophobic ambient, which has always been the flip side of the Der Blutharsch sound.

Music with a strong visual impact, as the best tradition demands; high degree of pride and naughtiness, this too was anticipated. And even the usual booklet reduced to the bone, where even the tracks don't have names, and where a solitary photo of Julius in uniform with his peculiar Hitlerian hairstyle stands out, a perfect representation of the warlike moods that infest the work. In short, nothing is missing, but where the pen is not brilliant, it will be more difficult for us to excuse Our for his way of being. And while it is true that one cannot speak of the reproduction of simple clichés, since Julius has founded his artistic identity on certain things, and it would be impossible to imagine him otherwise, it is even more true that if the inspiration is missing, if the ideas are lacking, the ideological charade Julius carries with him may appear less credible and more criticizable than ever.

With “The Track of the Hunted” things will definitely get better, but the signs of the end are already present, and in “The Pleasures Received in Pain” the weak points that will mark the progressive decline of the Viennese project emerge in all their evidence.

P.S. I admit, I wrote this review somewhat reluctantly, but I was absorbed by entirely different soundscapes (the latest from Pansonic and the latest from Current 93, that “Baalstorm, Sing Omega” I still have to digest to bring it to the big screens of DeBaser). Pardon.