nothinger, Aug 26, 2004
This was my first Sol Invictus record I've heard - and I was totally blown away! I mainly listen to industrial and experimental electronics, but that melancholic folk sound possessed me at the first listening. After that, I've gone through practically the whole Sol Invictus discography and it's still one of my two favorite albums (the next one is "Lex Talionis").
But this record sounds a little different than the others - it doesn't have (except on the first track) any electronics at all - only acoustic sounds and the voice. The, first song has a pretty ambient, long intro which comes up to the first one of the "sad, medieval-folk songs". Every song is based on the same motive, so I don't want to describe each one.
What I like the best is the melancholic and very sad melody, built by acoustic guitar, violin, tribal(are they live?) drums and Tony Wakeford's vocals, which are surprisingly good. Besides the music I love the lyrics on this album - especially in "Gold is King", "Deceit" and "Trees in Winter"; they are so simple, but great.
My favorites songs are "Gold is King", "Here We Stand" (great, almost power-folk beat ;-)), "Deceit" (one of the few songs that made me cry) and "Media". Unfortunately, I must say that this album could be even better if it did not contain "Looking for Europe" and "Michael". Those tracks seem to be included unnecessarily, because they really differ from the others and that's not to their advantage.
Summing up, it's one of the best neo-folk works I've ever heard and one of my favorite album of all time. This record also made me put Sol Invictus in the top three of my favorite artists.
4.5/5 (