Sol Invictus
The Blade

There are those who, aware of the transience of life, see the brief stay in this world as a bright ray of sunshine to be lived intensely before the eternal Night returns to reign. There are those who, on the other hand, simply cannot accept this condition of transience and end up turning their own life into an anguished reflection on the reason for the End. Tony Wakeford certainly belongs to this second category: his art, in fact, is nothing but the expression of the bewilderment that Man feels in the face of the End, and his works are a vehicle aimed at exorcising, but not resolving, the inevitability of death.

"The Blade" was released in 1997, and ten years after the birth of Sol Invictus, Wakeford does not seem to have made any progress in his journey of normalizing the trauma of the End. Whereas, in the same period, Douglas P. seems to disregard everything and everyone, peacefully living in Australia indulging with koalas and kangaroos, and David Tibet is on the brink of a mystical crisis soon to lead him to reunite with the longed-for Om, Wakeford’s battle, on the contrary, becomes more bitter and bloody than ever. In "The Blade," in fact, the epic and tragic tones that have always characterized the music of Sol Invictus are further amplified, resulting in the most apocalyptic work of Wakeford's artistic production. "My fate is inscribed on a blade of a knife," recites the title track, and with these words, we understand that Wakeford, a cynical observer of the bloodthirsty history of Humanity, has not surrendered at all, and that "The Blade" is his response to a world that seems to be plunging faster and faster into the abyss.

The Sol Invictus of 1997 are a machine now perfectly refined, a tight-knit collective in which each member’s talent enriches the hallucinated and decadent visions of the Man. Unfortunately, as with many other releases by the band, not all the material present ranks at excellent levels: alongside the evocative atmospheres and the usual winning flashes are, in fact, less successful episodes and somewhat prolix passages, where Wakeford's execution and interpretative limits emerge evidently. However, it must be acknowledged that in this "The Blade," which certainly is not the masterpiece of Sol Invictus, such intense moments are touched upon that make this work a compulsory purchase for anyone who loves apocalyptic folk.

The album opens with the martial title-track, dominated by the distorted bass of the ever-present Karl Blake, providentially invigorated by Wakeford's combative guitar and the incursions of Eric Roger's trumpet and Sally Doherty's flute, now reaching an extraordinary level of harmony. The first part of the album will proceed at medium tones, between not too thrilling episodes like "In Heaven," "Time Flies" and "Once upon the Times", and far more engaging moments, like the menacing "The House above the World", animated by dark piano tolls, and the overwhelming "Laws and Crowns", an epic ride that would make Blind Guardian and similar pale in comparison.

Far more interesting, in my opinion, is the second part of the album, particularly the triptych composed of "See How We Fall", "Gealdor", and "From the Wreckage". "See How We Fall" deserves, along with "Rose Clouds of Holocaust" by Death in June, a place of honor under the "apocalyptic folk" entry in a hypothetical multimedia encyclopedia. This song is apocalyptic folk: a ruthless arpeggio, dark guitar feedback, verdicts falling on our heads like boulders. “The eternal hopelessness of being,” recites the imperious voice of a titanic Wakeford, and it is only the beginning of a free fall into the abyss that, amid lethal violin incursions and distorted bass booms, seems to never end: "We fall and fall forever, and never and never hit the ground," Wakeford continues to sing to us as the arpeggio fades into the corticos drones of "Gealdor", a dark passage haunted by menacing rituals (for the record: the same rituals that Tibet transforms into silly squawks in "Valediction" of "Swastikas for Goddy"... great Tibet!). The same drones merge into the estranging atmospheres of the next track, "From the Wreckage", another instrumental of immense evocative power: on the restless phrasing of a mystical ambiance, the distant singing of a flute overlays, and while our mind is catapulted into parallel dimensions, it’s the dragging voice of Ezra Pound that awakens us from the torpor and prepares us for the emotional climax of the work. It feels like living in the last moments before the end of the world: dark clouds pile up in the gray sky as the thunder rumbling sounds like a gloomy omen. Wakeford's guitar materializes suddenly, seeming to be played in the midst of a black hole, but it’s the desperate song of Matt Howden's violin that shakes our limbs, seemingly wanting to set to music (and succeeding) the lament of Humanity heading sadly towards its End. I believe we have really come very far, very far, and in all sincerity, with tears in my eyes, I can only urge you to listen to the piece, one of the most beautiful things that have ever touched my ears!

The album concludes more than worthily with "Nothing Here", "Remember and Forget" (a spectacular interlude in which we find the ethereal warbles of the exceptional Sally Doherty delighting us), and the reprise of the title track, enriched with Wakeford's singing, which deals with resolving the last unresolved issues before pulling down the shutter and closing shop.

They say that in 50-60 years the world should end. Well, at least you will know what to put in your player!