THE AXIS OF PERDITION - "Urfe" - Reviews

http://www.eutk.net/album.aspx/10242/8640/

Il ritorno dei The Axis Of Perdition, a quattro anni da “Deleted Scenes From The Transition Hospital”, è una buona notizia, vista la passata, per certi versi ottima, produzione della band inglese, partita suonando black metal e finita nei meandri dell’industrial/ambient music più malata che ci possa essere.
Il nuovo “Urfe” è un disco molto controverso, un concept che narra la storia di Urfe, impersonata per l’occasione dalla voce narrante di Leslie Simpson, attore visto all’opera in film quali “The Descent” e “Dog Soldiers”. L’opera consta di un digipack con all’interno due dischi, entrambi di sei tracce ed entrambi della durata di circa tre quarti d’ora.
Il primo disco, chiamato “Grief Of The Unclean” è praticamente un monologo di Urfe, con in sottofondo un tappeto ambient oscuro e malato, ricco di field recordings, disturbante sicuramente, ma secondo la mia modesta opinione troppo prolisso. Il parlare fitto di Leslie Simpson cozza contro le atmosfere di fondo delle tracce. Andrebbe lasciato maggior spazio alle atmosfere tetre in luogo dei deliri di Urfe. Deliri che, tra le altre cose, secondo me non rendono bene lo stato d’animo del protagonista. Avrei gradito un’interpretazione più teatrale e tragica.
Per quel che mi riguarda sarebbe bastato condensare tutto nel semplice “Am I dead?” contenuto nell’ultima traccia.
Il secondo disco, chiamato “The Great Unwashed”, riparte laddove il primo era finito. Bisogna attendere la seconda traccia per sentire finalmente le chitarre, un cantato degno dell’atmosfera apocalittica che la canzone regala, pregna di rimandi a certo funeral doom.
Dalla terza traccia in poi avviene quello che auspicavo nel primo disco, la voce di Leslie si dirada, lasciando spesso spazio a landscapes desolati e angoscianti, i quali deflagrano nella quarta traccia, veramente disturbante e dai toni rituali.
La traccia conclusiva mostra aperture più melodiche e progressive, chiudendo il disco con una trentina di secondi di silenzio assoluto.
È difficile dare un giudizio su questo disco, perché pochi sono i parametri oggettivi su cui basarsi. Di sicuro non l’ho apprezzato, perché sostanzialmente nel complesso è un disco noioso, cervellotico nel senso deteriore del termine. Anche ascoltandolo più volte riesce difficile penetrarne il mood ed è tutto lasciato alle personali suggestioni dell’ascoltatore.
La seconda parte risolleva le sorti dell’opera, e singolarmente considerata è quasi discreta. Tuttavia nel complesso il disco è assolutamente insufficiente, perché non riesce ad essere malato, perverso e angosciante come era nelle intenzioni, e soprattutto nelle capacità, della band.

4,5
Recensione a cura di Luigi 'Gino' Schettino
 
I think this album has to be approached as its own unique entity. It's more of a concept/horror story accompanied by dark ambient music. It's less about the music itself, and more about the complete product.

The result is greater than the sum of its parts.

And the Global Domination reviewers tend to be a bunch of knuckle-dragging cave-men who can't handle anything with any complexity whatsoever. Then again, I never take their reviews seriously, anyway.
 
http://www.musiquemachine.com/articles/articles_template.php?id=150

Into The Mouth Of Madness [2009-08-18]Axis of Perdition have always made their own depraved and disturbing take on post Black metal. This years Ufe sees them offer their most daring and consistent work yet, it sees them all but abandon the black metal and mettlic elements of their sound for a double disk spoken word horror ambient meets grim industrialized soundtrack album. m[m]Are you worried you’ll lose fans with Ufe mainly un-metallic and un- black metal sound?
Brooke Not really, the first reason we do this is to please ourselves. Its been interesting that other people have gotten so into it but their reactions are not something we factor into the creative process. We knew fine well that a lot of people would not like it at all, there seems to be a contingent that only rate our first album so those folks have been dropping off steadily over the years any way. I'm always suspect of bands that take fan response too seriously or 'do it for the fans' so to speak. This approach is fine if your making pop music ( and I will include main stream heavy music in that generalization) but extreme music, especially like ours, is not a commodity to be designed for a target demographic, it should be an honest representation of what the artist wants to create, not what the artist thinks people want them too. It never fails to infuriate/confuse/astound and generally boggle our minds how limited a palate the average extreme music fan is and how intolerant they are in accepting things that stray even a little way from their established tastes. Having said all that baiting people is fun and we would much rather that people had some reaction, any reaction, to our music than it simply meaning nothing to them.

m[m]What came first Ufe story or the decisions to do a more ambient/ atmospheric album?And musically how long did it take to write?
Brooke We started mapping out what would become Urfe only a few weeks after Deleted... came out originally the album after Deleted... was to be Tenements Of The Anointed Flesh but ideas for something in a different vein to the Tenements... material began to accumulate. We originally thought of doing that as an EP but then Les brought us his script and even when we edited it down there was too much material worth using so the project got massively extended. We have always been quick to follow the muse so we went with it full tilt and Tenements... has now become the third installment of a trilogy and fifth Axis album over all. The writing was more a rapid accumulation than proper writing process per se. Over the years me and Mike had constructed the Axis world and really mapped it out so we gave our notes to Les and had a chat about some uncovered points and then he came back with the first draft of the scrip which we then refined, all the while the music was being constructed around the script.
m[m]Can you tell us a bit about the origins of the Ufe story?How long did it take you write the ufe story and was it a band effort or just one of you?
Brooke I think thats pretty much covered above I honestly could’nt say exactly how long to as it accumulated over and extended period
m[m]Why did you decide to not have a booklet with the package with the whole story texts in & are there any plans to put this out either on-line or in another form?
Brooke The lack of booklet was more a logistical decision than artistic, it would have meant more art work to be produced and at the time my method was quite time consuming, we also could not think of what to put in it that could not just go into the digipack panels. We knew we would not publish the script with the CD, we wanted people to really work for the information, parts of the narrative are quite buried so we wanted people to invest themselves in the work, to be fully immersed. We have no plans to make a full, edited transcript available but I would like some day to present it in some form of sequential art like a graphic novel or some thing similar

m[m]How did Leslie Simpson come to the project? And how long did it take to complete his parts?
Brooke Mike has known Les for a number years, they where both in the same youth theater group production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and they had both talked about doing something like this for a while, Urfe presented the perfect opportunity. Les, being a professional got through his parts fairly quickly in just a few sessions, most of his parts where done in one take and it was quite and unerving experience being in the room while he was performing.
m[m]Are there any thoughts about performing Ufe live? It made a great horror type prog show ;-)
Brooke LOL! \yes but most of our ideas are far too unrealistic to pull off, not to mention the question of the ethics and how an audience would react when we insisted on participation.
m[m]Can you tell us a bit about the cover artwork- what’s its origin?
Brooke Its a painting I made thats kind a surrealist/impressionistic representation of the Axis world and of Teeside where we grew up. It took what seems like forever to get finished
m[m]Clearly your all huge horror fans what stands as your top ten horror books or movies & why?
Brooke I don't think I could give you a top 10 but things that really affected us and where inspirational to Axis would be easier. The main point of reference would be Teeside where we grew up, apparently the visual inspiration to Ridley Scots Bladerunner. Its basically miles of filthy factory complexes with a dirty warren of houses attached contrasted by some beautifully stark and fantastically bleak coastline and hill. The silent hill games where a major inspiration at the start though not so much now, the environment areally resonated with the urban decay where we grew up. The film Session 9 is another biggie for us along with various Asian extreme and Anime. We read a lot of Lovecraft and particularly Ramsey Campbell and I'm quite partial to the weirder end of manga, Tsutomu Nihei really gets me going in particular.
m[m]Can you tell us a bit about your next album coming out at the end of the year & does it feature the Ufe character?
Brooke It will be called Tenements of the Anointed Flesh and will be the third and final part of the Urfe Cycle so yes it will contain Urfe and complete, or begin depending on how you view it, his story. Musically I,m not going to say anything but if you look at our 'career' as a whole then its pretty easy to see whats coming. We are looking to have that out by the beginning of next year at the earliest, we all needed a break from Axis after Urfe, Mike to finish his music masters, Dan has been busy with My Dying Bride and me and Ian have been working on Hesper Payne and Minethorn (debut album out now on Code666) So we are only just getting into gear now.
Thanks to Brooke for his time and efforts with the interview. To hear samples from Ufe check out the bands Myspace page here & my review of Ufe can be found here
Roger Batty
 
From vs-webzine (France)

Parmi les groupes qui délaissent une esthétique codifiée au profit d'une vision expérimentale de leur musique, on retrouve fréquemment les formations emblématiques du metal avant-gardiste, toujours prêtes à repousser les limites de l'audible grâce à l'utilisation d'harmonies et d'arrangements extravagants façonnés par moultes emprunts à la musique contemporaine. A l'exact opposé du spectre de cette recherche musicale naviguent en revanche des musiciens qui ouvrent des perspectives sur la forme par une réflexion sur le multimédia. Supports et contenus deviennent mixtes afin de libérer de nouvelles forces créatives.

C'est sur ce terrain que s'aventurent très concrètement les musiciens de TAOP en donnant à leur dernier album la forme d'un livre audio. Les pistes sont dès lors si parfaitement brouillées qu'on ne sait plus vraiment si « Urfe » est un texte enregistré ou une bande son théâtralisée. Mais j'y reviendrai. L'album, enfin... le livre, ou plutôt l'objet se présente sous la forme d'un double CD de 45min chacun, intitulés « Grief of the unclean » et « The great unwashed ». Sur le fond, les deux CD invitent à suivre l'histoire de Urfe, à la fois personnage et narrateur, dans son exploration cauchemardesque de Locus Eyrie sur les traces de son mystérieux guide Pylon. Le texte est déclamé par un comédien britannique professionnel d'une façon très théâtrale qui n'est pas sans rappeler les grandes heures de Peter Cushing à la Hammer ou Vincent Price outre-Atlantique. La référence au roman gothique ou au fantastique anglais ne s'arrête pas là puisque le récit, dense et souvent hermétique, rapporte la lente chute de Urfe dans un territoire infernal où la folie règne en maître.
Ça fait envie présenté ainsi hein? Là où les choses se compliquent c'est que le texte de l'histoire n'est pas livré avec les CD. Pas de petite clochette pour vous dire de tourner la page. A moins d'être bilingue ou anglophone averti vous risquez de fondre une paire de connexions neuronales en tentant de suivre ce récit rédigé dans un anglais plus que littéraire et dont la déclamation torturée se perd souvent dans les mouvements de la musique. Oui, il y a quand même de la musique. Je vous l'avais pas dit?

Ceux qui connaissent déjà la musique de TAOP doivent sourciller depuis un bon moment. Le précédent album « Deleted Scenes from the Transition Hospital » avait frappé très fort dans le genre en cristallisant le meilleur du dark ambient et de l'indus autour d'un chant et de thèmes carrément black. Un must dans le Black ambient. Sauf que les Anglais ne sont définitivement pas du genre à répéter deux fois le même album ni la même démarche.
Cette intransigeance toute à leur honneur les emmène néanmoins sur un terrain glissant dans la mesure où en poussant leur processus de composition dans ses derniers retranchements, ils se retrouvent à offrir une galette de strict dark ambient quasiment inabordable pour qui n'est pas prêt à s'enfiler 1h30 de sons organiques déstructurés et de nappes dépressives rehaussées dudit texte. Pour être parfaitement honnête le second CD comporte 4 chapitres aux accents nettement plus metal, même si le chant est souvent à la limite du spoken words, comme une récompense après les 50 premières minutes (si comme moi vous êtes un peu circonspect face aux productions du genre). Ceux qui connaissent le label suédois Cold Meat Industry sauront de quoi je parle.

J'oublierais presque qu'il s'agit d'un livre-audio, il convient donc de le juger en tant que tel. Pris dans sa globalité l'album constitue une bande originale tout à fait réussie dans des ambiances qui rappellent volontiers le travail de Akira Yamaoka sur la saga Silent Hill. Le hit japonais est d'ailleurs une influence avouée du travail de TAOP qui reprend à son compte des thèmes forts tels que les paysages urbains pourrissants, l'hôpital hanté et les profondeurs de la démence. Là encore la musique est volontiers narrative et remplit à merveille son rôle évocateur, en bonne complémentarité avec la voix du comédien (Leslie Simpson pour les curieux).

Délicat d'amener une conclusion tant l'appréciation de "Urfe" dépend de votre perméabilité à l'anglais et de votre goût pour l'ambient. A noter que l'absence des textes n'est pas un oubli mais une omission volontaire des auteurs destinée à forcer l'auditeur à utiliser d'autres clés que celle du récit pour pénétrer l'œuvre. On peut trouver cela génial ou totalement nébuleux selon l'humeur. Demeure un dernier problème pour moi : où ranger l'album dans ma discothèque? A côté de « Un coeur simple » lu par Lucchini ou du dernier BLUT AUS NORD?


Rédigé par : #Guillaume# | 11/20 sans le texte 14/20 avec le texte et de l'aspirine
 
The last sentence is pretty funny regarding where to file the CD in his collection. Still, it's quite a well-thought out review compared to some of the meat-headed ones that are out there.