:Of the Wand & the Moon:
The Lone Descent

Six years of silence separate the new "The Lone Descent" from the last recording from :Of the Wand and the Moon: which was "Sonnenheim." And six years is no small amount of time when you think of an artist like Kim Larsen who from 1999 to 2005 managed to release four albums and an EP.

This eagerly awaited new 2011 work raises hopes, considering all the time he's had to gather energy and inspiration, for a grand return, and I must say not all hopes have been dashed (and there were doubts!, given the highs and lows we've become accustomed to from him).

Larsen is no longer a new artist, but his well-established discography was still missing the Album of a Lifetime, except for the debut "Nighttime Nightrhymes," which until yesterday was still his most successful work. But to this "The Lone Descent," the term "album of maturity" can also be applied, if only because, while not an absolute masterpiece, it brings together all the virtues of previous episodes (the brilliant songwriting of the debut, the majesty and elegance of ":Emptiness : Emptiness : Emptiness:", the intimate singer-songwriter reflection of "Lucifer," the polychrome and choral aspect of "Sonnenheim"), carefully avoiding their flaws (the excessive similarity of the tracks to each other and the resulting sense of boredom and monotony), all within a more personal outlook, in which Larsen is finally able to dodge accusations of plagiarism (Death in June primarily).

The martial introduction of percussion and dissonance is thus a false alarm: the album overall manages to live up to the description on the official website, portraying it as the most "melancholic and sixties album" ever penned by Kim Larsen. Indeed, the daring opener "Sunspot" has a certain something of Mark Lanegan, openly showing from the start :Of the Wand and the Moon's: intention to follow the same trajectory of recent works by acts like Rome and Spiritual Front, which have wisely chosen to contaminate their sound with more distinctly rock and folk-singer-songwriter elements, and with smoky noir-cabaret settings.

But it's still apocalyptic folk we're talking about, and the following (splendid—in my opinion the best) "Absence" proves it: a cosmic folk that succeeds in building an imaginary bridge between the somber atmospheres of an album like "Rose Clouds of Holocaust" and the dreamy charm of "The Dark Side of the Moon" (and how beautiful is that trumpet solo floating unrealistically among ethereal arpeggios, guitar harmonics, and fluid synth pads!). And it is precisely the refinement of the arrangements (guitars, bass, percussion, keyboards, piano, strings, horns, female vocals, and more!) that paradoxically decrees the leap in quality in Kim Larsen's solitary descent: "The Lone Descent" is a hyper-produced album, a path that unfolds over eleven passionate confessions, eleven splendid ballads often quite long (reaching peaks of eight minutes!), where misanthropy and psychedelia go hand in hand, and a well-populated group of musicians (I mention only percussionist John Murphy, known for his various collaborations, most notably with Death in June and Current 93) is called upon to give depth to the otherwise sparse compositions of the most typical poetics of the project, always oriented towards producing intimate and pathos-filled atmospheres.

And so it turns out that Kim Larsen, without excessively denaturing his sound, delivers his most melodic, varied, and flowing album ever, where the vague echo of bands and songwriters from the sixties (and beyond) mitigates an artistic vision that sees music as a means to convey intimacy and nostalgia for an extinct, magical, and mysterious world, which stands as an antithesis to contemporaneity and at the same time as a socio-existential critique of its emptiness. A path of emancipation also expressed at the level of lyrics, never so painful and autobiographical, finally presenting us with Kim Larsen the Man, no longer a B-list artist, no longer a clone of Douglas P., no longer constrained within the narrow confines of themes always dealt with, concerning mythology, beliefs, and traditions of Northern Europe (a path exhausted with "Lucifer," a bland third act of a trilogy of albums that demanded conceptual completion at all costs, even at the expense of the product's final success, of which "Sonnenheim" was an uncertain appendix).

And so, alongside masterful apocalyptic ballads, blurred essays of a clear perception of absolute decay (and I only mention the enveloping "Tear It Apart", reminiscent of the unbeatable "Luther's Army" by master Pearce, and "Immer Vorwarts", enriched by the indispensable pagan accordion), we find pleasant surprises such as odd times and electronic beats that drive the Gothic "A Pyre of Black Sunflowers", or the fifties piano beat that animates the nearly gleeful "We Are Dust", or the guitar pizzicato tracing an epic singer-songwriter style à la Johnny Cash of "Watch the Skyline Catch Fire". Not to mention the breathtaking finale reserved by the exhilarating title track, which begins (heresies aside) as a ride in the style of "Heroes" and ends in the clamor of an apocalyptic crescendo that finds few equals within the neo-folk scene.

And even if Larsen's cavernous howl remains the cross and delight of the entire operation (evocative at times, soporific at others, although then our man, the poor fellow, occasionally tries to really sing), it's the rediscovered freshness in writing that animates all eleven tracks here, even the more canonical and tributary ones to the more archaic European folklore, like the ambient pause with strings and dark recitation of "Is It Out of Our Hands?", or the resounding self-celebration of the intense closing track "A Song for Deaf Ears in Empty Cathedrals", the episode closest to the project's past.

This time, it must be admitted, the little Larsen (no longer so little) seems to have done it, and "The Lone Descent", which also has the timing to offer itself to our ears at a time not particularly marked by memorable releases under the apocalyptic folk category, constitutes a refreshing breath of fresh air for all lovers of the genre. And not only...