Paul Chain
Life and Death

Time for reissues for the cult artist Paolo Catena, an unmissable opportunity to access or dust off works that have been out of the official purchasing circuits for some time.

Paul Chain has written, played, and released numerous albums, but the thing that is surprising is that for none of them, different and stylistically distant, one can refer to as a misstep or even a disappointment. When talking about Chain in terms of “genius” or more simply “talent,” it’s no joke: his inspiration seems inexhaustible, his creativity is a mad valve that secretes notes, images, albums endlessly, all distinguished by the same crystalline class, by a visionary strength, by a guitar verve that are rare within the metallic enclosure and beyond. Then, obviously, personal tastes intervene: Chain may not be liked, may appear ridiculous, off-key, overrated, Paul Chain certainly has flaws, but despite this, it is quite difficult for any admirer of guitar rock to belittle or dismantle his qualities and merits, and impossible for his fans to be disappointed in front of one of his publications.

This “Life and Death” does not disappoint either, a work, in the end, a bit subdued within the discography of Our Artist. Despite its good craftsmanship, “Life and Death” does not work 100%, especially from the point of view of atmosphere, a foundational element of the allure that the music of the musician from Pesaro evokes in all its forms. Although the album can be classified under the metal stream of Chain's works, the axis tilts in favor of an easy-listening hard/rock, revealing a less indulgent approach towards those sublime, shamelessly doom or Sabbatian territories in which Chain himself has moved with great ease, skill, and personality: a hard/rock therefore partly lacking in that morbidity, that unhealthy halo, that arcane magnetism that has always distinguished his work. Despite the evocative cover (a shot by Chain himself) which instead might have presaged yet another masterpiece of grim metallic craftsmanship without compromise.

After the Violet Theatre experience, Chain was probably seeking an additional dimension where he could enjoy greater freedom of expression, freedom that evidently the Violet Theatre could no longer guarantee (even if Chain has always held full control of the project and several elements from the old management would still be transferred to this new phase). His solo career thus began in 1987 (the year of Violet Theatre's dissolution) with several EPs and singles, and if we want to exclude the double “Violet Art of Improvisation” of 1989 (which in any case retrieved recordings from previous years), this “Life and Death”, published in the same year, is the first official full-length released under the name Paul Chain.

A work that in hindsight we could describe as the link between the two masterpieces par excellence of Chain's career: that “In The Darkness,” an ungainly gem from 1986 where Chain organized the energies that would propel his solo career, and “Alkahest,” a masterpiece of artistic maturity from 1995, a cornerstone of doom-metal. “Life and Death” thus inherits the modus operandi of the first (including the idea of having the B-side sung by Sanctis Ghoram, who for a very short period was the unpleasant throat of Death SS) and anticipates the elegance and grandeur of the second (clear sounds, superlative solos, an organ with a celestial sound smoothing certain passages, highlighting, among others, the excellent qualities of Chain as an organist), but does not confirm the compactness, constancy, and solidity in songwriting of both. Nine tracks, some very well done, others less so, which as a whole do not constitute a single amalgam (and let's remember that we are talking about an anarchic artist who has always harmoniously integrated very distant elements). But please let’s proceed in order.

It starts with the introductory gem known as “Steel Breath” by the talented Aldo Polverari (R.I.P.), capable of recalling (pardon the pun) horror soundtrack atmospheres worthy of an Emerson or a Simonetti. But not only that, the opener “Antichrist” and the subsequent “Kill Me” are clear examples of “Catenian” art in its purest form. Sure, the sounds are cleaner, the guitars airy, the atmosphere overall less oppressive and suffocating (certainly not breathing the ghost-infested crypt air we perceived in excellent works like “Detaching from Satan” and the aforementioned “In the Darkness”), but Chain is there: there’s his genius riffing, there are the textbook solos, there’s the chant-like voice pronouncing the usual made-up phonemes. Lu Spitfire and Klaus Rosental provide a dignified rhythmic base, a perfect complement to best enhance the improvisations of the guitarist from Pesaro: he is the master setting the pace, knowing when it is the moment the guitars have to open up to unfold majestic refrains, or when the keyboards have to intervene to inject pathos and highlight the most significant passages of the tracks.

In the subsequent “Ancient Caravan,” Catena demonstrates he can move brilliantly even in a more appropriately folk/medieval dimension: his haunted voice blends suggestively with the plucking of his acoustic guitar, hand percussion, and Sylvia Chain's baroque organ, and until this point, we would be facing yet another masterpiece branded by fire by Chain. With the next two tracks, however, the album tumbles ruinously into a banal (but always well-played) seventies-style hard/rock, polished with the typical glossy sounds of the eighties: here probably, Chain gave vent to his unconditional love for the glorious seventies, but with results that end up undermining his efforts, especially on the originality front and, as mentioned in the beginning, on that of atmosphere. “My Hills” in the first half flaunts a somewhat anonymous folk/blues (with an unimpressive vocal performance), then explodes in the second half into a lively rock bursting with solos, but substantially lacking bite (a priori failure from a not very gifted singer like Chain trying to mimic Robert Plant). The perplexities continue with “Alleluia Song,” starting from which the formation that marched from 1982 to 1984 with Death SS is revived, orphans at that time of the pillar Steve Sylvester: the song opens with an a cappella choir in which Chain's and his partner Laura Christ's voices sing a sacred aria, then continues in the wake of an uninspired hard/rock on which the spooky voice of Sanctis Ghoram (whom I quite like, but who in this instance does not seem able to fully express his potential) sounds frankly out of place.

The odds will be partially lifted by the next two tracks “Spirits” and “Cemetery,” tracks that, while not among the brightest pages written by Chain, still have the merit of steering the listening towards more properly dark shores, bringing us back the Paul Chain we know and love. Not fully though, because the Sabbathian sluggishness does not manifest in all its weight, but overall the tracks have a good swing, suspended between hard/rock of darkness and eighties darkwave: the dry and obsessive drumming of Thomas Hand Chaste and Claud Galley's essential bass constitute the ideal tracks for one side to emerge the more theatrical and cursed component of Sanctis Ghoram, and on the other the free guitarism of Chain, harbinger of putrescent riffs and thunderous solos (particularly the second track, which in its almost eight minutes constitutes a nice trip for the listener).

The whole concludes with another instrumental piece, this time by Chain himself, who delights for the occasion behind the ivory keys of a reverberant organ that seems to come from the worst of our nightmares: between occultism and psychedelia, “Oblivious” resurfaces the most mystical Chain we had almost forgotten during the listening of “Life and Death”, and it is a shame that the track, disconnected from the rest of the album, ends after not even four minutes (let's remember the ample half hour of “Our “Solitude (Birth, Life, Death)”, a very bold experiment that had opened the last full-length of the Violet Theatre “Opera 4th”).

If I could rate out of ten, I'd say 7/10; if I could break the balls, I’d give three and a half balls (rounded to four for respect): this is to say that the first official album of Paul Chain's solo career is a more than sufficient work, an honest and sincere product that showcases an unheard side of the artist, and that sketches important premises for the subsequent flourishing of his solo career, but which ultimately remains slightly below the expectations that we can nurture whenever we approach a work of this extraordinary artist.