Christopher
Nosnibor
The
album’s title translates as ‘through difficulties to honours’, and this
collection of Iberian folk songs, popular in the late 19th and the early 20th
century conveys nothing if not the supremacy of strength of character, and a
sense of journey, through adversity to triumph in a way which speaks of the
resilience of the human spirit, and the human soul.
The
album’s accompanying blurb sets the scene: ‘A travel through the rural Spain
watered by our ancestors’ sweat and blood, an approach to the magical Spain
with its lights and its shadows, and a gaze in to the abyss of the black and
tenebrous Spain with the inner cruelty and brutality of human beings. Pieces of
memory, tradition, secrets and myths transmitted over the years from generation
to generation, around bonfires, while long working days under the sun or during
celebrations. Small samples of popular wisdom which, unlike others already
entered into the mists of time and have been rescued from our elder memory
before their demise.’
Folk
music, by its nature, tends to be narrative, but also dramatic and allegorical.
While the lyrical content is, admittedly, entirely lost to me, the sentiments
conveyed by these ambitious reshapings of traditional compositions remain
intact, and, using contemporary rock instrumentation Aegri Somnia succeed in
rendering them powerful and moving in an alternative context.
To
unravel the workings of this project, which was pieced together over the course
of some five years, some biographical detail may be useful: formed by Cristina
R. Galván “Lady Carrot” from the Castilian folk music scene and Nightmarer from
the avant-garde metal projects As Light Dies and Garth Arum. Aegri Somnia is a
folk / dark wave duo from Madrid, Spain.
If it
sounds like a curious hybrid, Ad Augusta Per Angusta is proof that it’s one
that can work well. It’s loud, dark, metallic. It’s contemporary, but also
timeless.
‘Seran’
launches the album with an immense swell of theatricality, huge swathes of
post-metal guitar propelled by a spiky drum machine bringing force and layers
of drama to the gothic symphony.
‘Señor
Platero’ is a beautiful, graceful folk song – played in a full-throttle metal
style. The guitars burn, slabs of molten lava over which Galván’s operatic
vocal soars s if swooping from the heavens to grace this interzone between the
earthly and the ethereal. The loping drums and serpentine vocal of ‘La Niña de
la Arena’ is high-tempo and high-power, but features some neatly executed
techno-industrial percussion breakdowns. Entirely incongruous with the origins
of the material, such features serve to highlight the versatility and
absolutely timeless nature of traditional folk music.
Elsewhere,
on ‘Charro del Labrador’, the violent, top-end-orientated drum track duels with
a chorus-heavy picked guitar line to create a sound that will resonate with
anyone who’s heard – and enjoyed – a bootleg containing demos by The Sisters of
Mercy from circa 1984. I’m probably writing for myself alone at this point, but
this is by no means an album exclusively of interest to old goths. Far from it.
The
album’s sound is dominated by big, grainy, up-front guitars with a thick,
metallic edge: sometimes almost overbearingly so. That’s by no means a
criticism per se: the production values are unusual, in that the guitar sound
is as ‘unfiltered’ as it is up-front, a shade messy, and prone to burying
everything else in the mix, including the vocals. All of this adds to the
potency of Ad Augusta Per Angusta, an album which yields rewards through
perseverance. Exactly as the title foretells.
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