Death in June has never been any stranger to (mostly unfounded) controversy. Starting life as a post-punk band after Douglas Pearce left the leftist punk group, Crisis, everything about them has fallen under constant scrutiny. Over the years, their aesthetic obsession with Nazi symbolism as well as Third Position philosophy and neopaganism, has led to everything from show cancellations to full-on protests to this album actually being prohibited for sale to minors in Germany. And their actual music has taken them all over the world (including Israel). Rose Clouds of Holocaust is probably their most popular album and a good representation of Death in June's neofolk sound.
The intro, "Lord Winter" features spoken vocals (the lyrics to the track, "Luther's Army") read by Max Wearing, over an almost industrial lead-in to the first real song, "God's Golden Sperm," which, like most of the album, exercises a jarring vocal restraint with a sort of upbeat but dreamlike musical approach. Keyboard and melodic percussion underscore a low-mixed acoustic guitar. "Omen-Filled Season" follows a similar musical path, with the keyboards providing a certain breeziness to the sound. Douglas Pearce's spoken/sung vocals work well within their limitations. The album as a whole shows an almost hallucinatory lyrical style, as evidenced by "Jerusalem the Black" ("Babylon awake and laughing/Jerusalem asleep and smiling/Someone I know, he holds a gun/And shoots with his heart in Jesus"). "Luther's Army" is more of a traditional post-punk styled thing, vocally. More attention is paid to rhythm and in the right hands I could see it remixed into an awesome industrial dance track. In Douglas Pearce's hands, however, it's much more interesting, with horns and keyboards providing ominous drones below the acoustic guitar. "13 Years of Carrion" features more prominent horns, providing their own melodies rather than just droning. "The Accidental Protégé" features some of the most beautiful lyrics on the album ("I thought I found paradise/But, paradise came and wept/Like the wind through the winter's woods/It cowed and took a breath"). The vocal delivery and instrumentation on this song is nearly perfect, with sad, understated vocals and the horns replaced by what sounds like a melodica. Some of the guitar on this song reminds me of (and may well have been performed by) David Tibet's playing. The title track, "Rose Clouds of Holocaust," is probably the second biggest departure here. It's probably the fastest song on the album with the most pronounced and - dare I say? - catchy vocal melodies. The biggest departure, however, is the last track, "Lifebooks." With tremolo-warped chords and muted spoken vocals, it seems to serve as more of an outro than anything. I think I hear David Tibet in there providing a vocal counterpoint to Douglas Pearce's sort of subdued vocal style with his own oddly enthusiastic delivery. The most legible audible words are a repeated hissing assurance that "it's a dream" followed by a demand to "wake up." That's Death in June in a nutshell.
Anyway, this is an incredible album that I would highly recommend.
