World War One — known as The Great War prior to another world-wide conflict that blew up in 1939 – isn’t really discussed or examined in much detail, it seems. Plenty of armchair quarterback “amateur historians” equate “WWII as ‘the good war’. It had the ‘bad guys’ vs. `Merica (fuck yeah! We’re #1!)”..., and WWI as “just a bunch of treaty-bound Euro-assholes dicking around in the trenches for a few years, accomplishing nothing of importance until ‘Merica went Over There to settle things”. The truth is far more complex, as Europe and much of the world was forever changed by the 1914-1918 conflict. It can easily be said that the “peace” between the two World Wars was simply a pause in the fighting of one long conflict. As such, the events touched off by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on June 28, 1914 was both the end of an era, and the start of many decades of strife, in both Europe and throughout the rest world.
In terms of extreme music, you would think that this continent-spanning war would be as richly examined as other conflicts
But aside from God Dethroned, Sabaton, the almighty Bolt Thrower, Iron Maiden, and a scattering of other material from other acts, World War One has not been desirable lyric fodder for many bands. The exception is of course Ukraine’s 1914, who have made it their one-and-only purpose in life to dive into the festering trenches of WWI — and never ever come up for air.
1914 has always done a masterful job of setting the tone and atmosphere of the times, with each album featuring authentic period music, radio broadcasts, etc. Here, we have an album kicking off with “War In”…, with what sounds like a Balkan show tune that I’m sure went over like gangbusters in the Belgrade music halls. It closes out with several shots ringing out – and then all hell breaks loose.
The assassin of the Archduke used a pistol to do the deed
Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip used a “FN.380 ACP#19074”, to be uber-precise. This track clearly defines the tonality that 1914 has always striven for, and here they hit their stride very early in the game. Multilayered atmospherics, tremolo picking, underlying horns, masterful production…, this song drips with atmosphere, and can easily be pointed to as “Wanna know what 1914 is all about? Check this out”.
The album from that point on is unrelenting
But 1914 is not necessarily an one trick pony. They are not afraid to slow things to a crawl for the betterment of the story. We have for example a near-complete breakdown to funeral-ish levels half way through “Pillars of Fire (The Battle Of Messines)”. With lesser bands, this might be seen as simply “taking a breather,” but here the tempo changes directly relate to the well-written lyrics and the every-present underlying feeling of dread.
“Don’t Tread On Me (Harlem Hellfighters)” starts off with a 1914 staple: an authentic period-relevant sound clip. In this case a bit o’ propaganda, followed by an autobiographical sketch of an African-American man fighting on a French battlefield, and how it wasn’t so different that the horrors he saw growing up in an American ghetto.
With “Coward,” 1914 throws us a curve ball, by way of an acoustic banjo-driven tale of a man broken down by, well…, everything. He is then shot in the head by his own corporal for cowardice. This isn’t just standard fare for “war metal” – this is heart-felt humanity and brutality through and through.
Each song comes across in very human terms, often with an auto-biographical slant.
“…And A Cross Now Marks His Place” is written as if it were a letter being written to a deceased soldier’s mother. It signs off with the horribly grim “In true sympathy yours faithfully, War”. Fuck….
The album closes out with the longest track, “The Green Fields Of France” – a 10:57 take on an Eric Bogle tune – that expertly beats down what little hope for humanity you may have left in you.
1914 are always one to dig up period-appropriate clips, and the outro (“War Out”) is another 19-teens ditty of just how “happy” and “grand” war is. How it’s not anything more than dressing up in your smartest walkabout attire, marching over to the other side of town, and getting in fisted-cuffs with the hooligans over there for a hour or so before tea time. It’s utterly naïve and farcical intro, interlude, and outro snips like this that give the rest of the album’s tracks even more gravitas.
Throughout the album are one-on-one examinations of how the brutality of the war affects not kings and queens, nor generals and admirals, but rather the grunts in the trenches, the ones chewing the dirt, the ones breathing the mustard gas, the ones spitting out the blood. The ones dying in the many tens of thousands.
The lyrics are top-notch and well worth looking into
Yes, even if you don’t normally dig into the lyrics and the liner notes when you’re binging some war metal. The production here is also excellent: it lends itself well to the claustrophobic hellscape that each track is trying to convey.
1914’s entire catalog is excellent, and this one is for sure a must listen. Top 10 entry for 2021, easily.
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