TREES IN WINTER

The first more or less full length album from SOL INVICTUS sees a whiplash transformation from the post punk/industrial "Against the Modern World" of just 2 years earlier to what could legitimately be called neo folk, though I'm not sure that term was even around then. "Trees in Winter" represents Wakeford's vision that he more or less followed through the 1990s: the pace is more deliberate and a whole lot less of the guitars sound like what we practiced in our adolescent subterranean den just prior to learning a chord or two, if indeed we ever did. To be clear, I quite enjoyed that debut, it's just that this is so different, more folk oriented almost from start to finish.

After a somewhat unconvincing though deliciously dire "English Murder", "Sawney Bean" ramps up a tale of a altogether sinister cabal of cannibals that may or may not have existed in pre Renaissance UK. Musically it predicts "English Garden" that became perhaps Wakeford's best an best known song a few years later. The peak here, notwithstanding the lyrically compulsory "Looking for Europe", is the stretch of "Here we Stand" through "Blood of Summer", in which strings and winds decorate the arrangements for the first time and the melodies are trad inspired if not re-adapted. "Deceit" might be the most haunting. Now, because I am now used to Mr Wakeford's limited voice, I can't tell if it was just better back then or if I've accepted that it largely works for this style.

For the bonus material that confuses the timeline on this and other SI releases, we return to earlier times with varying success, "Somewhere in Europe" being a noteworthy synth pop ditty. Still, the original album stands up to the retro scrutiny of apocalyptic folk poseurs such as yours truly.