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Rating: When something is done well - really well, I mean -, developing its sequel becomes a bit complex. It is necessary to demonstrate, in short, that the goodness of the original work was not just a flash in the pan, to meet expectations as much as possible, to maintain a fabric of successful guidelines while integrating - and interweaving - innovative elements into it, also taking care not to overturn everything. "Innovate" and "maintain," a semi-mystical, theoretical, cyclical balance, almost equivalent, in the end, to two different components of the same apparatus. Almost like the conceptual relationship between "red" generally representing upheaval, and "black" driving everything back into the shadows, restoring the rightful order - which often tends to assume a cosmic-universal dimension - to things.
But if it's about "order (re)established," surely there must exist something, upstream, that provides the basic impulse to the mechanism. Something that lies outside the realm of rationality, something that no one among men, not even the poets - who can "only" sing of its incomprehensible, Leopardi-like infinite magnificence - can understand. Bragi the Skald, and his art, were not exempt from all this. And now, on the brink of surrendering forever to the boiling, lava-filled womb of the Hekla volcano, something unexpected, utterly lacking in reason and sense, intervenes to forcibly save him from the inevitable. Your destiny is not "Death," poet, but life, and "Revenge." Seven years have passed, seven years of torture, and slow destruction, but it is not necessary for him to understand. We are all subject to inscrutable designs and divine machinations: only from the ruins, from the dust, can we rise again. How many centuries have passed since then. Generations pass, time flows inexorably, perspectives change, tragedies - these do - remain, and the greater the one who sings them, the more the deeds of the protagonists will be indelibly engraved in future memory. And you? Do you remember me? For years I wandered, abandoned, among the ice.
Thus opens the second and final chapter of the Icelandic Odyssey conceived by the duo Lazare Nedland - Cornelius Jakhelln. And it is a desperate cry, in which, however, it is already possible to glimpse in the background, well-defined, an explosion of anger, which will fully consolidate later. "Red for Fire + Black for Death" is a dazzling debut, a blend of apocalyptic atmospheres and tones oriented now towards canonical black, now towards avant-garde, as had not happened - not in these expressive modes - since "The Linear Scaffold," the first official work under the Solefald name. If in the first part of the work, the dance had been started by the cadenced, sweet, and melancholic "Sun I Call," here there is clearly a radical shift in trend, a prelude to the thematic and musical development of the album as it progresses; a quick discovery, with decisive immediacy, of the cards: be careful, this isn't simply "Red for Fire," it goes beyond, the fire befriends a funereal darkness, and what results from this is absolutely extraordinary. Having crossed the Bay of Smoke, headed towards the city, the Skald is compelled to make a forced stop in "Underworld", home of the "Silver Dwarf," who will teach him to manage his emotions favorably, to respect his own self, to understand the value of pride: "Silver Dwarf" is magical, hypnotic in its fairy tale-like scream - which reaches unusual heights of expressiveness - played and modulated on voice-bass relationships and dissonances, as narrative - and action - demands. Just before, an experimental jazz interlude driven by Kjetil Selvik's saxophone, to enrich and expand the stylistic horizons of the Norwegians. Just as the underground world is completely different from the commonly known one, so are the evident sound contrasts between the respective universes: labyrinthine and intricate places, where there is a prevailing peace that is, however, born of the absence of light, resulting in mystery and unease, a whirlwind of opposing sensations, making it truly complex to understand something.
But Bragi is finally ready, ready to continue in his - epic - "Necrodyssey" (literally, deadly odyssey), and reach a cathartic moment, of high drama: contact with his ancestors, so they can transmit to him the necessary strength to fulfill his destiny. The strings return, the growl, a slow climax culminating in the magnificent, elevated, prophetic cry: "Till Hel decides who she wants to burn". She, the Queen, the beginning of everything. It is no coincidence that at this point in the narrative, a reinterpretation of the previous "White Frost Queen" is introduced. Noteworthy is the presence of Garm (Ulver) as a singer, the protagonist of the duet with the magnificent Aggie Peterson in "Locki Trickster God", revealing the backstory of the deceiving deity, exactly what had been kept silent before. Now everything, albeit under the mysterious influence of the "black" - that is, the color associated with darkness -, takes shape and contour. Like Oedipus who, only after blinding himself, manages to concretely understand the situation; he manages to see - yes, see - clearly the things as they are. It is, in the end, a partial thematic reprise of the role of the poet. We know reality through the convention of language. Once the one who creates language is gone, the conception of truth is irremediably compromised.
The balance is, however, near, and so is the confrontation between the Skald and the protagonists of his humiliation. The Queen reveals her pain, the beloved kills the King, driven by a divine fervor wounds Loki, before being in turn, Shakespearean-like... pierced. The end of everything, the order restored. The odd time - structural cornerstone of the piece - accompanying the Queen, fleeing with a court servant towards the Norwegian coasts, is emblematic of the swirling torment of the one who, ultimately, can be rightly considered the true protagonist, on par with that Helen who caused so much trouble for Trojans and Achaeans. One last wave, one last infinite, indelible wave, "Sagateller", where prog, black, avant-garde, and viking coincide, providing a rising flow that takes on dark contours, before crashing on the rocks, and sinking into the Ocean, a Nordic ocean, a black ocean.
"Son of Laius, we wish we had never seen you; and we weep for you, shouting from our lips the saddest lamentations. And yet, to tell the truth, thanks to you we have breathed, thanks to you we have been able to sleep" (Oedipus Rex, Sophocles).
Black for Death.
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