Der Blutharsch
The Track Of The Hunted

"The Track of the Hunted" was released in 2000 and can rightly be defined as the album of Albin Julius's definitive consecration as an industrial genius assembler of sounds and impressions.

Less dispersive and undoubtedly better orchestrated than its predecessor "The Pleasures Received in Pain", "The Track of the Hunted" retrieves the compactness of his early works, a compactness that is, however, reinterpreted in light of an increased mastery of the means. What strikes more than anything is the dramatic force that the dark evolutions of Julius's machines acquire, a dramatic force unmatched in Blutharsch's artistic journey, so much so that it can be called, if not a masterpiece, certainly the most successful work of the Viennese panzer.

The martial arrogance, the warmongering violence, the propagandistic howls here give way to the desolation of a more meditated and finely calibrated post-industrial in all its usual components (minimal electronics, industrial sampling, and ambient digressions): an attitude more evocative, we could say, solemn, at times ritual. A perverse ritual played out among the fog and frost of a shattered and silent battlefield.

"The Track of the Hunted" thus fuses Beauty and Death, never before so intimately intertwined, and lends itself to listening as a dark and sooty, smoky and impalpable, desolate and desolating monolith of rusty steel and congealed blood, a journey to the end of the night gradually "illuminated" by sporadic voices and timid incursion of acoustic instruments (a guitar, a violin, and little else) that foreshadow the progressive process of "humanization" that will pervade Blutharsch's music starting with "Time is thee Enemy!", predominantly played and contaminated by more canonically neo-folk sounds (not to mention the recent "When did Wonderland End?" and " The Philosopher’s Stone", which dare to embrace more typically rock styles!).

From a strictly formal perspective, the "weak point" proves to be the intent, not always impeccably crowned, of wanting to insert the live sound of voices and played instruments into the electronic framework.

But apart from this remark, which remains the perennial cross of Blutharsch's music, it is clear how Julius's hand has refined in the meantime, how "scalpel" and "suture thread" are handled with greater mastery than in the past. And consequently, how the layering of meanings and symbols has thickened and enriched with greater complexity.

Consider the introductory track, where the popping of a bottle and the reverberation of wine filling a glass with its mass go on to celebrate the propitiatory rite that introduces a transfer to a dark and clouded past by the horror of war. The operetta choirs and the distant roar of a siren announcing the imminent air raid are eloquent signals: the destination is World War II, evoked by irreducible nostalgics, ex-hierarchs of the Nazi party gathered in the confines of a gloomy parlor decked with swastikas and relics of the Third Reich, jealously preserved and devoutly polished.

No point in going further; in every respect, Julius remains faithful to his intention: to transpose dark war scenarios into music, reinterpreting them romantically, much like a new Wagner in industrial version. It's no accident, in fact, that the classical composer is cited by Julius among his most important influences, along with our own Morricone.

And it is precisely with the orchestrations of the famous "For a Few Dollars More" theme that one of Blutharsch's finest compositions ever opens: I'm talking about the second track (like all others, untitled), where Morricone's strings become a harrowing march; where instead of the famous trumpet solo that shatters us is a woman's tragic song, soon accompanied by the oblivion of keyboards and a dark narrating voice; where funereal percussion tolls and Julius's own violin wedge between industrial loops mimicking the tragic and weary steps of armies heading towards their annihilation.

If this is, let's say, the best we can expect, the worst resides undoubtedly in the ninth track: a silly German tune reminiscent of "Faccetta Nera", not a new solution in Blutharsch's house. A very questionable choice that, if on the one hand, highlights the ideological consistency of the artist, on the other hand, certainly supports the incendiary theories of his detractors.

And in these two extremes lie the pros and cons of the work, whose judgment becomes difficult to formulate: if on the one hand the compositional maturity reached by the artist leans towards an undoubtedly positive evaluation, zero is undoubtedly the score deserved by anyone who decides to celebrate in the cozy warmth of their own living room the unspeakable horrors of war.

In my neck of the woods, we say "fare il finocchio con il culo degli altri".

P.S. I have recently changed house and job: in the first I don't have internet and in the second I even have to work, so much so that I don't have time to mess around online even during lunch break. This is to say that I will not have time to check mail before next weekend and my hope is not to find 800 messages with "enough of these fascists".

I'm taking it for granted.