Ordo Equilibrio
Conquest, Love & Self-Perseverance

The fetish/sadomaso version of Death in June. That's somewhat the idea you get when listening to this "Conquest, Love & Self-Perseverance". Nothing more, nothing less. That might seem reductive, but at least it immediately clarifies what to expect.

I don't mean to belittle the Swedish Ordo Equilibrio, who are undoubtedly among the most distinguished examples of the second wave of apocalyptic folk, which has risen (or rather descended) to a genre by now. My intention is rather to highlight that with the passing of the torch from the old to the new guard, something has certainly been lost. Something important.
As controversial and critiquable as their stylistic and conceptual choices may be, the first scene, led by Death in June, Current 93, and Sol Invictus, always constituted an expression of artistic urgency and was able to shine with a certain depth of reflection and sensitivity in handling delicate themes (which sometimes, it must be said, even the greats lost control of).
The successors, in my opinion, have limited themselves (as usually happens) to capturing the more superficial aspects of their masters' music and attitude. It's difficult to perceive and recognize in works like this, the tension, the fragility, the existential turmoil, the epic pathos, the autobiographical involvement, the bewildered gaze at reality that instead characterize works like "But, What Ends when the Symbols Shatter?", "Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre," or "Trees in Winter".

Many certainties seem instead to be held by these new talents, strong in an elitism, a misanthropy, and a superhumanism that at times are somewhat amusing. This attitude appears more as a pose than anything else and is in no way supported by a solid weltanschauung, a penetrating vision of the world, life, man, culture, and society. A void of thought that inevitably betrays itself in the foolish gaze of the would-be artist, pictured in the inevitable booklet photo, in army fatigues or whatever brilliant disguise they didn't invent.

All things considered, given the context, Tomas Pettersson's proposal is not bad at all, and in a way shines with its own identity and raison d'être, capable of giving the entity Ordo Equilibrio well-defined boundaries and a differential value compared to the rest of the scene.

Pettersson's idea essentially lies in having injected into the genre's sound body a good dose of perversion, staging a whole series of morbid atmospheres and settings, with a strictly sexual and sadomasochistic backdrop, of undeniable charm. The fatigues, in this case, are replaced by leather trousers and a whip, but otherwise, it travels on well-known coordinates for some time.

The guitar riffs, to be clear, are the bare and repetitive ones that the genre requires, as are the typical essential keyboard counterpoints and industrial/martial incursions. Nonetheless, it is all skillfully cast into an even more minimal, hypnotic, and murky context, thanks especially to the sensual recitation of Chelsea, Pettersson's female alter ego, which merges in unison with the leader's own dark recitation in a distressing and paranoid chant.
Guitar looped, keyboards looped, effects looped, the same phrases repeated, words just hinted at, the dark ambient phrasing: it seems that the intent is to extract the maximum from the minimum, to reduce energy wastage as much as possible.

The artistic effort, albeit modest, however, leads to good results: if it is true that the songwriting is not the most brilliant, the atmospheres, between the decadent and morbid, are carefully and attentively arranged and packaged, so the songs, though similar to each other and monotonous in succession, are able to emanate, overall, undeniable allure.

Therefore, there's no point in highlighting one episode over another: dark folk-ballads alternate with obsessive industrial/ambient interludes, composing a gloomy and voyeuristic continuum in which the freest and most transgressive sexuality is celebrated, and at the same time its denial, since sexuality is (unwittingly or not) downgraded and stripped of any affectionate and human connotation.

The whip cracks, in fact, blend with the repetitive noises of machines and the obsessive rumbling of war drums, in a conception of sexuality as mechanical act, unconditioned reflex, animalistic, which becomes human only in the act of possession and conquest, in the act of punishing or rewarding, in the sterility of violence and perversion.
An impulse that dies and nullifies in the non-exchange implicit in the mechanical complementarity between dominance and slavery. An orgiastic rite that, far from assuming the libertarian tones of the emancipation of sexual morality itself, becomes implosion, unfulfilled satisfaction, metaphor of dehumanization and alienation of contemporary society.
A perpetual dissatisfaction, an "active impotence" and destructive that leads to the increase in need and further aggression on the prey, in an annihilating vicious circle that can only lead to complete nullification, of self and others.
A gloomy proceeding that, between gothic atmospheres and bell tolls, also plays on the boundary between sacred and profane, as if to emphasize the sharp aversion to the hypocritical and bigoted Christian moral view towards sexuality.

All enriched by bombastic pronouncements on the World, on Man, on Life, on Everything, which underline Pettersson's infinite arrogance.

What to say, if you're tired of placing your now worn-out Death in June records on the turntable, this "Conquest, Love and Self-Perseverance" (which constitutes the band's last coup before total collapse following Chelsea's defection and the transformation into Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio) can indeed be a pleasant variation. Or, at least, the ideal background for your most romantic romps (always assuming your lady is tired of the Immortal record you propose every time!).