Once Upon A Time in the deep dark 70’s there was a guy called Tony Wakeford who embarked upon a quest to recount tales of old English eccentricity and legend. He has been doing so ever since and has released a huge amount of albums under the contentious guise of Death In June at first and then later Sol Invictus with whom he has released in the region of 15 studio albums and stacks of other formats such as live and compilation albums. Primarily classed as a neo-folk and neo classical artist he is someone who you could look upon as a bard or even a bit of a shamanic character steeping the listener in tales of long forgotten rites and arcane mysteries and drawing them into worlds that are richly rewarding and imaginative.
I am certainly far from an expert in his output having caught Sol Invictus a couple of times live and delved into far too few of his albums than I would have liked to. But there was an instant familiarity that I found on pressing play on his latest tales. We don’t immediately find ourselves listening to his somewhat calm, warming and instantly identifiable voice; the first song as with quite a few here is an instrumental. When he does drop us into his narrative driven world we have one of quite a few songs on the album centred on the devil as we are told of a meeting and pact made with him in a classic style. Musically it is calm and delicate with a splash of flute peppering things Jethro Tull style and some psychedelic nuances and softly beaten tribal drum. Added to his normal troupe of players such as Caroline Jago, Lesley Malone, Éilish McCracken and Renée Rosen is intriguingly guitarist Dom Anderson of Agalloch and the album is also mixed by Jason Walton from the band. Unless you had been provided with this information it’s not something you would have picked up on in the slightest but I guess the fact will draw people to Sol Invictus who would not necessarily have heard them before and certainly enriches the overall experience.
Nothing here is forced or in your face it simply flows from one piece to the next. Sometimes lyrics are repeated and really stick in your head, no doubt “the little dog laughs” will be chanted along when the band play the title track live. At other times it’s quite meditational as with the strumming bass tones and meandering fretwork on instrumental 13 Mercies. Best of them all here is ‘War’ which is a little more (ahem) warlike with an anarcho post punk swagger and a chorus of “People get what they deserve” running through it. I did wonder if it was an old song redone short of looking through their whole discography I would not be that surprised as it really stands out. As for the last trio of ‘Austin,’ ‘Osman’ and Spare, well yep, see what you did there!
There are 15 tracks in all and although on first and even second listen things took a while to sink in it’s an album I have enjoyed more on each listen. Still there is a bit of a niggle as although enjoyment is a good enough thing I have to wonder if it is the sort of album that I would be likely to come back to again and like a book, unless its exceptional, once read it’s going to be left on the shelf to gather dust and never be picked up again. Having said that though the cover art would immediately have made me want to grab it off the shelf in the first place and there’s always a good chance that it is going to draw you back into its folds again as these tales are certainly timeless.
(6.5/10 Pete Woods)
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