At the beginning of the year, I had the impression that everyone who could afford to do so was putting off releases. Since the beginning of the summer, in normal times a bit of a dry season, great albums have started coming out one after the other, and the LP at hand can certainly be counted among the best ones so far.
As it is always the case with good albums, there is a lot more to be said about them than the scope of a review allows for. The Lone Furrow references a multitude of ideas in as many languages, via quite diverse music and with the help of numerous well-known vocalists – and I will only be able to scratch the surface of all of these features. But don’t think that the LP is something unappealingly convoluted! The fact that the album manages to be a tremendously enjoyable and accessible listen despite its complexity is part of what makes it a great album.
Although you might not have heard of Jerome Reuter, the Luxembourgish singer-songwriter behind Rome, the list of guest vocalists on his new album should give you an idea about how long he has been around, where his musical affinities lie and possibly also about the esteem he enjoys among his fellow musicians. Alan Averill of Primordial has lent his voice, as has Behemoth’s Nergal and J.J. of Harakiri for the Sky – and that’s not naming everybody.
It’s certainly not the case that Jerome Reuter can’t sing and would depend on those vocalists – far from it. His deep, sombre voice has character enough. But each of the guests add something of their own to the album, through their background and their mother tongue. The end product is a piece of music that linguistically includes the whole of Europe, from Poland via Austria, France and Luxembourg to the British Isles, as well as America.
The guest vocalists I have listed above might suggest that this is a black metal album, but that is not the case. Philosophically though, The Lone Furrow is close to the black metal genre in that it displays a dislike for the various outgrowths of Western civilization and seeks a connection to our nature-loving and nature-respecting pagan pasts.
It is neither easy nor really necessary to label the LP genre-wise, since almost each and every one of the album’s thirteen tracks has its own character. However, for the sake of orientation, let’s put down some corner stones: You will hear spoken word bits, with a background of spherical sounds, then there is plain folk with acoustic guitar, percussion and voice, but also Americana and French chanson, as well as industrial music. Everything is spiked with samples from movies, plays and speeches. The lyrics are poetic, the vocals full of Weltschmerz, but the overall atmosphere is not one of melancholia – it is rather one of stubborn resistance.
The album opens with Masters of the Earth, a spoken word piece in which the words are accompanied by sounds of nature and electronically charged buzzing. “Modern civilization,” we hear “is not superior, is not enlightened,” and “modern man (…) has neither grace, nor purpose.” Tough statements, maybe, but true nonetheless. This speech, featuring author Aki Cederberg, is followed by a rather traditional folk song, Tyriat Sig Tyrias, with acoustic guitars, percussion, flutes and bells.
Ächtung, Baby!, maybe best characterized as neofolk, has Alan Averill of Primordial as guest vocalist and pledges allegiance to old gods and natural hierarchies, in a calm, harmonious and self-assured way. The track’s title is a reference to U2’s album Achtung Baby, but I don’t think it is a positive one, as I have read somewhere else. The “Umlaut” makes all the difference. While “Achtung!” in the imperative form just means “Pay attention!” or “Listen!”, “Ächtung” is ostracism, exclusion from society.
Things get audibly a bit wilder and more dangerous with the fifth track, Angry Cup, featuring Adam Nergal Darski of Behemoth. The percussion has gained in aggressiveness in comparison to the preceding tracks, as have the vocals. Some chanting in Polish sounds especially threatening.
The Twain serves as the calm before the storm, and everything culminates with the album’s central track, track number seven of thirteen, Kali Yuga Über Alles. The music is post-industrial, like the times we are living in. Our civilization, we are told, is past its prime. The percussion sounds like bombs hitting the ground, driving every point the lyrics make home. Fantastic!
After Kali Yuga Über Alles the album slows a bit down and feels somewhat anti-climactic, which is not to say that the songs that follow are not worth hearing or of a lesser quality – it’s just difficult to focus on anything else right after the bombs have dropped.
I think I have said enough to make your mouth water. The rest of the album’s flavours you can explore for yourself.
There is only one more thing I need to get off my chest. No, you weird people spreading conspiracy theories on the internet, “über alles” is not necessarily a reference to Nazi Germany or its hymn. It is much more likely that the song title Kali Yuga Über Alles referes to the Dead Kennedys’ song California Über Alles. And the use of that phrase was meant ironically in the first place.
(8.5/10 Slavica)
Leave a Reply