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SOL INVICTUS

The Blade
1997
TURSA 014 CD

The Blade (1997 TURSA 014 CD) has been billed as a return to the roots of pagan Europe, drums and all. It certainly has heroic, martial qualities but is actually very varied, drawing on three main currents.

These are the classic Sol approach (Tony's vocals and acoustic folk guitar), Tony's newer ambient-orchestral interests and Sally Doherty's vocals (as in the Orchestre Noir manifestation) and a more experimental element (e.g. distorted electric guitar), the latter no doubt encouraged by the participation of the mad but talented Karl Blake.

The lyrics are about life, death and struggle with particular reference to "The hopelessness of being" (to quote the opening line from 'See how we fall'), the transience of human existence, mortality and the death of God. This is gloomy stuff even for Sol: perhaps Tony's been reading Schopenhauer again!

The sad and violent history of the Twentieth Century is duly lamented, but in case you think he's going soft, his sense of regret is balanced by the fatalistic belief that we are destined to struggle and that the future will be bleaker than the past.

This recognition of the human condition is signified mystically by the inclusion of Heimgest's Odinic Gealdor - a magical chanting of the runes. For those who understand their symbolic meanings, the invocation of the runes encapsulates not just the fatalism of wyrd, but rather the totality of existence. All life (and death) is there.

The album contains some very distinctive tunes, including the title track which opens and closes the album and on which a trumpet suggests Ennio Morricone influence.

By projecting his characteristic preoccupations with a variety of styles, Tony strikes the magical balance between continuity and innovation which should be to the delight all Sol fans.

Rik - 7 May 1997