Sol Invictus
The Devil's Steed

"We are the Dead Men": with this anthem opens the latest (to date) musical endeavor of Sol Invictus.

"We built the ships, For war and for peace, We built that church, In whose gardens we sleep... We are the Dead Men!": the fatalistic streak, universal pessimism, the bitter disenchantment of Tony Wakeford have evidently not waned over the years. And after a couple of not overly exciting albums ("The Hill of Crosses" and "Thrones", in which new solutions were sought to refresh a well-tested formula), Wakeford returns to doing what he does best: pure and simple apocalyptic folk.

"The Devil's Steed" is indeed a welcome return to the sounds that have made the English artist famous, and almost twenty years after the band's formation (it is 2005) it shows that the legend is still alive: brilliant in songwriting, emotionally felt, elegant in form, "The Devil's Steed" reveals itself as an album of great class, an album of heart, an album that confirms the band's stylistic consistency, but is also capable of bringing innovations. It is the atmosphere, in particular, that becomes less bleak, and without losing the anguished decadence that has always characterized it, the sound of Sol Invictus is enveloped in a magical aura, at times dreamlike, wistful, ethereal. As if Wakeford's crusade lost those harsh tones that had crossed it in the past, and refracted in the soft reflections of a red sun setting definitively. Glimmers of a twilight to which we cling desperately before darkness takes everything away from us.

Twelve timeless ballads interspersed with three instrumental episodes: fifteen acoustic jewels often ripped apart by blinding incursions of abstract noise that paint the colors of sunset on the song of Wakeford's End.

The guitar refractions of Gary Parsons, the pulsating bass of Karl Blake, the astonishing and solemn trumpet of Eric Roger build oblique and rarefied melodies that echo distant echoes of an eternal tension, of an epic clash without place and without time, of a tragic ride in a fiery sky. And if Matt Hodwen and his violin are no longer part of Sol Invictus today, taking his place are Maria Vellanz and Renée Rosen who, with a more noise-oriented attitude (listen to how the violated strings screech in "O Death Come Close My Eyes") certainly do not make us miss the illustrious predecessor.

The tormented "Old London Weeps", the epic "The North Ship", the visionary "A Steed for the Devil": "The Devil's Steed" is a dream in which everything appears blurred, intangible, mellifluous. Amidst it all, the firmness, determination, obstinacy of Wakeford, his solid monotone voice, his mercilessly advancing guitar. Among revisitations of English folk tradition ("Twa Corbies"), dreamlike excursions (the eight minutes of "Where Stone Lions Prowl") and expressions of heartfelt songwriting ("A Window to the Sun"), we reach the sublime rarefaction of "The Silver Swan", which states "Farewell all joys! O death, come close my eyes", eloquent in elucidating the moods of this work.

Perhaps 60 minutes is too much for an album that could have been lightened a bit here and there by some somewhat anonymous and ultimately redundant episodes. But "The Devil's Steed" is not a mere collection of songs, it's a unique experience to be lived with eyes closed, distant from what surrounds us, pleasantly numb to what has been and what will be. Yet at the same time, Wakeford is able to offer us a great generational, indeed universal, anthem to sing every day, every morning when we wake up, every evening when we return tired and prepare to relive from the start our small daily tragedy, our slow and inexorable march towards the End: "We are the Dead Men".