Sol Invictus
Lex Talionis

"Lex Talionis" is another good work by Sol Invictus, not without those imperfections that (as often happens in works penned by Tony Wakeford) prevent us from declaring it a masterpiece despite the quality of the content.

Originally published in 1989 and then in 1990 in a revised version, "Lex Talionis" is the first actual album by Sol Invictus, those dirtier, electric, and industrial ones, to be clear. The electric guitar hasn't been completely put away in its case, it seems, and its use, in a sound-dirty atmosphere, will characterize more than one episode of this work which, due to the heterogeneity of the pieces contained, appears more like a collection of recordings dating back to the first years of the band's activity rather than a standalone album.

First of all, we note the presence of immortal classics such as "Black Easter" (here in a somewhat stumbling version, still smoky from industrial suggestions), "The Ruins" (fiery assault folk), and the beautiful "Abattoirs of Love", supported only by keyboards and opened by drones, by the piano, and by the legendary invocation of Ian Read: one of the most exciting moments in the entire discography of Sol Invictus. I speak in the plural, but in reality, at the time Sol Invictus was just Wakeford, who handled all the instruments (vocals, guitar, bass, and keyboards), sporadically helped by Karl Blake (bass), Leithana (piano), Dik (drums) and the already mentioned Read (except for the aforementioned "Abattoirs of Love", his vocal performance, which is quite off-key at times, was not particularly impactful).

The sounds and moods are similar to those of the debut EP ("Against the Modern World", from 1987), from which the same lack of technical preparation and the same approximation in producing the product are inherited: it is that raw mixture of folk, industrial, and electronic that characterizes the band's early works, a formula still a bit immature but not devoid of feeling. Acoustic ballads, pierced by synths and drum machines, alternate with the chaos of machines and guitars (suffice it to think of the claustrophobic noise of the title track), in a scenario where the ancestral folk, which will soon manifest, is still far from its definition, while what prevails is the dust and rust of remains and scraps of a post-atomic desolation.

Worth mentioning is the electronic ballad "Tooth and Claw", a unique episode in the band's entire discography, presenting Wakeford in the unusual guise of an electric sprite (the beautiful "solo" of distorted guitar is piercing). The fumes of his past with Death in June have evidently not yet dissipated, as evidenced by the reprise of "Fields", a classic from the first artistic phase of Death in June, here revised in a strictly acoustic version. Whether speaking the language of a fierce folk or a somber industrial, glaring in all its tragic splendor is Wakeford's artistic mission, which is to materialize passionate and captivating music, tinged with despair, fatalism, bitterness, yet vigorous, angry, and combative in spirit.

The piano in "Wine and Blood", a reflection of the initial "Blood and Wine", closes the circle, enclosing Wakeford's decaying world with melancholy, strewn with ruins, soaked in blood, and irrigated by tears shed for the irreversible fate of a Humanity in free fall.