Steve Von Till
A Grave Is A Grim Horse

Steve Von Till, voice and guitar of Neurosis, reaches his third solo effort in 2008. If "As the Crow Flies" was a surprise and "If I Should Fall to the Field" something so beautiful and profound to astonish us, this "A Grave is a Grim Horse" is the confirmation: the confirmation of the talent of a genuine artist, a true hero of our times.

Beware of underestimating the art of Von Till as a singer-songwriter, which should not in any way be considered a mere pastime, the intimate appendix, the surrogate of his monumental Neurosis: the primitivism of the latter sheds its electric armor and the rampant tribalism that characterizes them and gently pours into the interstices of intimate music, amid the grooves of a barely touched guitar and a voice with a warm and deep timbre. But the inner lacerations, the fraying of the soul, the visionary talent remain such and perfectly recognizable.

The howl of Mark Lanegan, the epic solitude of a late Johnny Cash, the disenchanted hallucination of Michael Gira of Angels of Light, and more: a whole tradition of American singer-songwriters originating at the dawn of the world and running through history to our present day, all flow into the eleven ballads that make up "A Grave is a Grim Horse", a journey starting from the damp soil of wheat fields and reaching the pale glow of a faint moon in a night sky.

As mentioned, Von Till's desolate guitar and vocal talent are the axis on which the discourse develops, a discourse made of nuances and details that reveal themselves little by little: a placid ride through inner and twilight landscapes, often brightened by a violin, an organ, and little more. The rough voice and slight noise interventions, relegated to a subcutaneous dimension, are the only elements that recall the third millennium neuroses of the mother project.

Only at times does the electricity return to stain the chiaroscuro of a work out of time, so archaic as to touch the end of time itself. This is the case of the epic title track, which opens the album with the roar of an apocalyptic blues, supported by distorted guitars and the desolate march of a drum in one of its rare appearances.

But it's only the dust of a moment, already the second track, opened by violins, leads us into an intimate and fragile dimension: it's the stunning reinterpretation of Nick Drake's poignant "Clothes of Sand".

But the Von Till interpreter does not stop here; he dares to embrace the eternal pains of the human soul sung in a more or less distant past by Mickey Newberry, Townes Van Zandt, and Lyle Lovett: a now mature Von Till who is not afraid to confront the classics, more or less known, of American tradition. Make them his own as only the greats can do.

And it should not be said that the Von Till author is any less: Von Till's pen is always inspired, smooth, caressing. One should particularly look at tracks like "Valley of the Moon" and "Gravity", true conceptual and emotional peaks of the work, not by chance placed halfway and at the conclusion of it all.

"What is done is done, What is gone is gone" are the last, (dis)consoling words; words choked, hindered by the lump in the throat and soon followed by faint violins called to close the album. An album that ends by leaving us with the bitter taste of sobs from an inner cry that knows no peace except in resignation.

Between the wisdom of those who learn and the fragility of those who understand, Steve Von Till is able to craft a gem of rare splendor for our times, obscured only by a slight monotony, in tones and moods, which over time may tire the less trained ears.

But what does it matter, I ask myself, when faced with manifestations of the soul of such authenticity?

We will all see each other in the Valley of the Moon, friends. The End is a sinister horse...

...to ride...