Runes Order
The Land of Silence

The Genovese Runes Order are an electronic-ambient music project that actually revolves around a single person, a certain Claudio Dondo; who over the years has churned out an impressive series of records and tapes by recruiting musicians and singers among his friends, with mixed success and varying results.

The music of Runes Order is on one hand infused with industrial suggestions with distinctly right-wing political and ideological contaminations, or at least of "Celtic" inspiration. On the other hand, it seems to have rediscovered two decades of electronic trends without particular content flair. This means that the choice of a runic aura surrounding the project stopped at the titles and iconographies without truly declaring itself in the (rare) lyrics and the sound setting. This is because Dondo has never shown to have original composing talents and the ability to evolve, ending up compensating for the lack of musical ideas with an overlay of cultural matrix.

"The land of silence" is the second work officially released on CD, following the debut of "Winter." And this album, like the first, consists of reworkings of material already published on cassette in the early '90s, cleaned up and arranged with a spirit that sails between Dead Can Dance, Death In June, OMD, and the more keyboard-heavy Cure. The cover and atmospheres tend to identify the work with a decadent and martial strand, but where the rhythm prevails and female voices unfurl in sinuous litanies, the genre reminiscences are closer to synthpop and 4AD productions.

Overall, the tracklist isn't bad, if considered in the individual beginnings of the various pieces. But a careful listen confirms that there's no great ability to develop the tracks and, in the long run, the album is very repetitive, constructed on endless introductions that never take off. This characteristic was further amplified in subsequent works.

"Ombre", "Metamorphosi", and the title track "The land of silence" aren't bad, at their core. But they suffer from a lack of identity. The melancholic "Tears in the snow" has become a small classic of Runes Order, perhaps their best-known piece: and rightly so, as it weaves a tapestry of small old-fashion suggestions, with analog sounds and a pounding yet discreet drum. A piece rarely encountered in later albums.

Runes Order is quite a well-known name in the undergrowth of Italian independent productions, also thanks to several live appearances and a small following of admirers. Frankly inexplicable, however, is the exaltation from certain critics who have evaluated Dondo's project as one of the most influential and talented of recent years, considering that it is rather monotonous discography that heavily draws from elsewhere and has not maintained a line-up capable of giving an evolutionary imprint to the path.

"The land of silence" remains one of the less pretentious chapters and sketches a trace of personality that will appeal to enthusiasts of pseudo-soundtracks, halfway between Alan Parsons and This Mortal Coil. But nothing more than an acceptable and well-packaged album.