Band:	Death In June
Album:	Essence!
Style:	Neofolk
Release date:	November 30, 2018
A review by:	RaduP

01. Welcome To Country
02. God A Pale Curse
03. The Trigger
04. Snipers Of The Maidan
05. The Humble Brag
06. Going Dark
07. The Dance Of Life - To Shoot A Valkyrie
08. No Belief
09. The Pole Star Of Eden
10. What Will Become Of Us?
11. My Florida Dawn

2019 is now upon us, but before we truly embark, let's talk about why 2018 was a significant year for neofolk, one other distant relative of metal.

There's Death In June...

Neofolk is a genre that has become associated with metal mostly through its influence of atmospheric black metal or doom metal, through the likes of Agalloch and Empyrium. Death In June sits on the more acoustic side of the genre rather than the industrial one; they are (an) early originator(s) with their more post-punk first albums released in the early '80s, when Death In June was actually a band, with Sol Invictus's Tony Wakeford as a member, before becoming Douglas Pearce's solo project. The band and the genre as a whole have been going in and out of relevancy in the last 15 or so years, with this band and Douglas Pearce becoming more isolated (from his regular collaborators) and stripped-down (in sound). Essence! comes as something of a surprise despite not coming after any long break, solely because it feels like an actual Death In June album after a long time.

The sound feels a lot richer and reinvigorated on Essence!. While obviously acoustic guitars and vocals are still the main focus, the album is not subtle in its use of noise, samples, layered synths, percussion, bass, and folk instruments. This does bring back a sound that still retains an ominous edge, but is overall more lush and a lot more upbeat, being somewhat similar sounding to something like darker '60s pop (just listen to the keyboards in "What Will Become Of Us"). And it's often this contrast of ominous and upbeat that is so compelling on songs like "Going Dark" or "God A Pale Curse", striking something of a sweet uncanny valley. Each layer adds more to the sound that is greater than the sum of its parts, adding everything together in a way that is not very complex, but very compelling.

Obviously the sound is not the only thing that makes this album so engaging, since after all the strongest quality of Death In June's music has always been Douglas Pearce's vocals. It's not quite hard to notice signs of him having grown older, but even when they do appear, he doesn't sound strained; rather, those signs add a bit of flavour. The upbeat singing voice contrasts with his dark lyrics, especially the repeated lines in the more neofolk songs like "Like a fly on the wall at my own funeral I am free" and "What a miserable life we would have made / We met on the dark net" in "Going Dark" or "To shoot a Valkyrie / To shoot a swan / The deep state goes on and on". I would quote more lyrics, but I guess it's best if you listen to them yourself.

Essence! truly captures the essence of what makes Death In June great. Dark lyrics, ominous moods that sometimes contrast with upbeat melodies, sometimes not, excellent layering and a certain oddity in sound. It is also their (or rather his, as you'll notice a lot of neofolk projects are centered around one person) best record in more than a decade.

...and then there's Current 93.