Jacula
Pre Viam

Was there a need to uncover the ancient tomb once more? Was there really a need to desecrate the chest of mysteries and to do so, break a seal that had lasted forty-two years? What forces could ever emerge?

I bring these reflections into being, apart from the intrinsic value of the work, which, I say right from the start, is high, very high.

The return to the scene of Antonio Bartoccetti is not news, after all: for some years now (the colossal EP/DVD “Magic Ritual” came out in 2005), his Antonius Rex have returned to play in our stereo, to our extreme pleasure, I add.

But it is real news the return in the Year of Demons 2011 of the entity Jacula, frozen in slumber that seemed destined to last forever, after a brief but dazzling existence: an experience spanning two albums, the magnificent “In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum” (1969) and “Tardo Pede in Magiam Versus” (1972). Then Antonius Rex was born, who, through various adventures and decadal releases, have reached our days unscathed.

A title like “Pre Viam” (literally “Before the Path”), if on one side it hinted at a powerful comeback to the arcane and sacred moods that distinguished Antonio Bartoccetti's first artistic incarnation (a unique, terrible experience, enormously ahead, absolutely detached from the years in which it materialized), on the other hand, marks a clear conceptual continuity with “Per Viam”, the latest work of Antonius Rex, released in 2009. Between these two opposites lies the sense of the work I am about to review: on one side the will to recover the ancient and inimitable spirit that hovered in the albums marked Jacula; on the other, the inevitable continuity with the present.

In short, if evoking the name Jacula cannot but send a shiver down the spine of those who loved/venerated its music, the cover can initially generate some perplexity, especially if one thinks of the suggestive black and white of “In Cauda Semper” (among the most shocking that rock history has known, considering the year of the album's release) or of the vivid pastel tones of “Tardo Pede” (which brilliantly depicted the same subject in a colored version). Like music, the graphics have also taken enormous steps forward since 1972, but I still can't digest the hideous digitized images that have accompanied Magister's works for several years now. And so I go back, a bit intimidated, to the initial question: was there a need to resurrect an old and captivating black and white film and take up its plot to propose a sequel in 3D?

Dario Argento with the “Third Mother” failed miserably. Antonio Bartoccetti with “Pre Viam”, fortunately, did not, although on first approach, the content of the work seems to echo the sensations one has when looking at its rather tawdry cover: a modern and glossy sound for music that can no longer be as “ahead” as it was in the past, but which is born from a mind that seems to know how to emancipate from the decades of the seventies and eighties (which is very understandable, by the way, even though from an innovator like Bartoccetti we would expect something more, when instead today, Our Man, before even carrying forward his research, seems more interested in refining his art, without essentially overwhelming its basic assumptions).

The modernist aspect is obviously attributable to the contribution (here fundamental) of Bartoccetti's own son, known as Rexanthony (known mostly in the techno-trance-dance circles of the trendiest clubs), who had already collaborated with his father on the last works released under the Antonius Rex name.

All very beautiful and well done, mind you, but I still love remembering the Jacula entity inextricably linked to the talent of Charles Tiring (now passed away), whose organ outlined unrepeatable atmospheres filled with a deep sense of the sacred (he was, after all, a monk or something like that); I also love remembering Bartoccetti's anticipatory guitar that, although with great sparseness, emerged vividly coloring Tiring’s endless litanies with dark doom (it was ‘69!!!); I finally love recalling the suggestive recitation in Latin, the enigmatic lyrics, the ethereal warbles of Doris Norton, the absence of drums, the presence of a medium: all of this rendered the Jacula entity inimitable, indeed unique, creator of music out of the ordinary, truly experimental and therefore progressive, that aspired to be a mystical experience before being simply artistic (not to mention the fact that Bartoccetti’s guitar—true, at the time he lived in London and could therefore benefit from a culturally stimulating context–was really forward-looking, capable even of anticipating the suffocating/ritualistic atmospheres that would mark the history of the much more famous heavy metal godfathers Black Sabbath—not to detract from the eternal genius of Tony Iommi).

Today, however, the band presents itself in a renewed but certainly less innovative guise: the avant-garde strength gets diluted in the repetition of an honest prog/rock with strong gothic hues, where we can find robust frontal assaults of rhythmic guitar and pounding drums, and long atmospheric interludes, just as it was at the origins. Only now the sounds have changed, they are modern, they are powerful, they are clear, clean, crystalline: they are perfect for those who want to explore the potential of a top-notch stereo system; they fare a bit less well for those, like me, who had madly loved the arcane, blurry, dark, intangible atmospheres of “In Cauda Semper”. And then Bartoccetti's voice is missing (the album is mainly instrumental, except for the presence of sensual female voices), while the titles/texts are written in plain English (but why?). Overall, the sound becomes richer, more varied, and catchy (at times cunning in its ostentatious romanticism), whereas it was minimalism, intransigence, and detachment from any kind of commercial concession that set the band apart from all other prog formations of the era, big names included.

For the rest, what can be objected to such a serious, unwavering, and professional musician as Antonio Bartoccetti who, like any self-respecting progster, loves combining excellent songwriting with a meticulous attention to production aspects? We are not talking about black-metal here, so let's indulge in these forty-seven minutes that will certainly exalt the fans of the Marchigian artist.

The self-celebrating opener “Jacula is Back” is the emblem of what we are about to listen to: for the first half, it moves elegantly through the path of a catacombal ambient, infested with horror effects and sinister arpeggios of acoustic guitar (the impression is to find oneself at night, in the very cemetery where the monk's tomb was desecrated, serving as a visual backdrop to the band's musical-esoteric excursions from the beginning); in the second half, on the other hand, rough distorted guitar riffs break in, dragging the track towards the shores of a modern electro/goth/metal of mighty craftsmanship in perfect third-millennium Antonius Rex style.

In short, all the elements that distinguish today’s Bartoccetti are present, and if we must pinpoint a difference with the last works of Antonius Rex, it lies in the determining imprint of the virtuoso Rexanthony's flair (who expertly navigates between piano, moog, minimoog, hammond, synthesizers, etc., never making one miss the legendary Doris Norton, absent this time), particularly in his erudite classical background (the piano is very present, often doubled by the father's pizzicato, who makes use of the acoustic guitar more than in the past), at the expense of the more purely “metallic” verve, relegated to the background (except for a couple of circumstances), in a backdrop of gloomy environmental settings, often shaken by bursts of sophisticated prog with exquisite seventies taste.

Everything is definitely sublime, listening flows between interlocutor pauses, slow evolutions, and sudden scenario changes, always riding the wave of tension, of 'who goes there', up to the traumatizing final, the now well-known concluding track “Possaction”, built around a real document, the heart-rending screams of the possessed Sandra B. (who then committed suicide in 2010) recorded during an exorcism: an operation I don’t think has ever been attempted in the history of music, which gives shivers just thinking about it and confirms how Bartoccetti's art is not just music but an experience trying to approach the dark side of man's existence with force.

And here lies the fundamental gap, the conceptual leap that makes an album of simple and good progressive rock a worthy chapter of the Jacula saga. It was therefore worth exhuming the ancient corpse, because, despite the wrinkles, Bartoccetti continues to be the bravest and most credible champion of a conception of art as a mystical experience, which becomes truly “occult music” as a vehicle to approach the supernatural (invitation and admonition at the same time, in a game of attraction/repulsion, curiosity/terror into which the listener inevitably falls, welcomed into the ambiguous ritual of a priest who masterfully wields the knowledge and tools at their disposal). In this, Bartoccetti continues to be the most extreme of all (as if to say: when the going gets tough, the tough get going), not just an inventor (we can say it, at least in a strictly rock or “commercial” dimension), of esoteric music, but also an artist (lonely and elitist) who really does not fear any challenge to achieve his (dark) purposes.

Fear.