Of The Wand And The Moon* – The Lone Descent

There is one album from the last year which the crew of Brutal Resonance had passed by, and I don't understand how this could happen. This record definitely is a thing to write about. There were a lot of reviews written and posted, a lot of words had been said, but here I would like to add my opinion as well, because this CD have not left my CD-player for quite a while.

:Of The Wand and The Moon: is the band that doesn't need too much introduction. Being active since 1999, the fruit of able mind of Kim Larsen, it has a rich resume of entertaining albums which already became a "must-to-have" for all Neofolk fans. Despite the productivity during few
years, there was nothing new from Kim since 2005. And I am sure that everybody was hungry for the new material knowing the huge potential of :Of The Wand and The Moon:. So, here it is, the album called 'The Lone Descent', it entered my home one autumn day and captured my heart from the very start.

After listening to dozens and dozens of copycats and so called neofolkers of a new wave, this masterpiece comes as inhalation of fresh air, like a portion of clean water for the body dried by hot wind of a desert. I had been optimistic about this upcoming album of Kim, but the result was beyond
my deepest desires and expectations.

It is hard to accept this CD for easy listening or relaxation evening with a glass of wine. The album is very complex and personally oriented work. It touches the hidden strings inside each soul and talks about the deepest personal emotions. The melody in each song is very structured and layered with lots of different kinds of instrumentation, guitars, cymbals, violins, piano etc. Kim's gentle voice floats over all this structure and the fluid of his words brings long forgotten memories back to life, the cinematic vision into the origin of love and hate, betrayal and death, the serenades to life in all its manifestations. The sadness and grief sounds are carved into the lines, the poetry of loss and tragedy is brought here in full emotional waterfall:

"Our life passes like idle chatter
Life ebbs out like children stutter"

"Our love passes like idle chatter
Life ebbs out like children stutter"

(Sunspot)

"There's a tumor within your heart
This pitied love, this petty life
This emptiness we leave behind
This pitied life, this petty love
This silence from above"

(Tear Apart)

In this album Kim questions each of us about the way we feel the surrounding world and the way we cope with the troubles and problems inside ourselves compared to the fact that we are all dust under the legs of eternal sorrow and solitude.

"And we are dust
Yes we're dust
In time and space"

(We are Dust)

According to Larsen, this record was inspired by the art of famous musicians of 60's Lee Hazelwood and Serge Gainsbourg. I am not a specialist in this period of musical development, but after listening to a few songs of their creation, I can claim that :Of The Wand and The Moon: are gone beyond the stylization or copying the music of the past, though there are some analogies that can be heard here and there. The good old neofolk prevails and dominates, though the influences add a new taste to it. Even when the compositions are complex, the songs are easily remembered and are "caught on the tongue", that's why during the next CD run I can already chant the words in my mind together with Kim singing for me again.

The ballads of :Of The Wand and The Moon: are the projection of aspiration of the inner self towards the loneliness and solitude while the world around becomes one big social village, where each of inhabitants is stuck inside the other. It is a will for reevaluation of the meaning of love and emotion. The breath of cold lakes and vast forests, wide-opened planes and the ride from betrayed hopes towards the new beginning, all of that is woven in one big colorful canvas.

"Words ring hollow
Clouds draw in
Discouraged
Spring rides on
Embrace the solitude
The fruit of life
Sorrow deep
Impenetrable"

(Watch The Skyline Catch Fire)

Every heart yearns for comfort, each bleeding soul needs rest. Every missing love will be found someday and embraced with warmth and care.

"And I miss you and I miss you
Always in my heart
But we push forward plunge onward
Always towards the end"

Being the fruit of almost seven years of craftsmanship and hard work, I can definitely state, that this specific album can enter the highest pantheon of classics of neofolk music, even without putting itself on the test of time. A total and massive masterpiece beyond all imagination.

so who did the vocals on 4?

credits are messed up.

This is what Death In June should have evolved into after 'Rose Clouds Of Holocaust'. Thankfully, we've got OTWATM. One of the best neofolk albums I had pleasure listening to. My deepest respect goes to Mr. Kim Larsen for creating this jewel of an album.

It takes more or less one hundred albums to get something like “The lone descent”, one hundred albums full of imitations and clihés, wandering inside predictable notes and strolls and finally the whole sum from this annihilates the entire genre making it boring and unbearable and then among all that coal, a jewel like this appears. This kind of episode has happened during the last 10 years with this incredible amount of guitar strollers that call their selves Neofolkers and “invent” something that has been done by others yet they claim the merit once again. This never ending bunch of bands with no other merit than to be attached to a genre by copying formulas and identities where only a few (Most of them veterans by now) can be called as true representatives.

But this album is different and it saves the night for all. And it shows OTWATM in quite another facet invariably linked anyway to the genre that allowed him to express in the very beginning. By definition it should be a Neofolk album and it is, because it has this melancholic uproar, this solitude linked with obscurity, because its sound it’s pristine like a cold lake and its mood is like a forest under snow, but above all it’s a love album, utterly desolated and hopeless and that’s somehow different from what we were accustomed to.

The previous albums efforts are enriched here with beautiful accompaniments and intrepid guitar chords, the atmospheres, the guitar exploration that mix the elemental note with the bucolic delicacy of a conservative stroll now classic. The explorations made with the sideproject Solanaceae are also perceived here with this halo of 60s sound, groovy bass lines coinciding with solid guitar arrangements in the vein of psych folk, shocking choruses and subdued atmospherics both organic and synthetic that grants the album this particular depth so close to a final testament or a suicidal note.

Its a dangerous and radical album from this perspective as the melancholy denoted its intense and desperate and one cannot escape easily to its grip, besides the compositions are so touching and easy to be remembered, its a shocking album who dares the listener to survive the hit that goes directly into his heart as it certainly points that direction. The melancholy and lyrical scepticism expressed characterize a beautiful darkness, this spleen on mankind and its future, this distrust, this solitude of the spirit, loveless and lost, well managed to integrate into pure beauty all these sentiments for the listener to enjoy.

The eleven songs comprised are simply outstanding both compositionally and sentimentally and an album of such dimension can only be named as a classic almost immediately after listening as it surpasses not just owns band merit and previous creations but somehow becomes a benchmark for veterans and newcomers altogether, showing them the way, not to follow but to understand what its required to create something not just authentic and beautiful but just unique.

http://heathenharvest.org/2011/10/01/of-the-wand-the-moon-the-lone-descent/