The Yoga of National Socialism

This is Spear Of Longinus' most well-known album by most accounts, perhaps alongside their notoriously titled demo. This band's career is a process of continually reinventing the hybrid of no frills thrash/punk meets first wave black metal, and at this point that combination appears at its most spartan. Before delving into the specific content, the approach being taken by the listener needs to be decided upon, as does the question: just how seriously do we need to take this?

Spear Of Longinus is a combination of esoteric musings, thoughts on the ultimate implications of cross-cultural mythological amalgamations, the nature of metal culture and of course a good bit of playful humour. Contradictions and juxtapositions, elaborate arcane metaphors over three-chord punk riffing, perhaps characterized properly by member Camazotz's phrase "the supreme sin-thesis of polarities." This is the nature of Spear Of Longinus. And it is a package that has gone over the heads of many listeners who do not delve deep enough to gain a reaction better than "those stupid nazis!" or "cool old school metal!" - missing out on the element of fun in the work of the extreme metal artist is not a phenomenon limited to PMRC uptight mothers, frequently it's the fans at the underground level who are not in on the joke. This band's good time goes largely unnoticed.

They also demonstrate a level of mythological and historical literacy on the level of any popular Egyptian-history-textbook-recital acts. Probably this is obscured to the listener because they do not stop at recitation - no, here intricate global mystical narratives are reinterpreted and played off of each other in a creative way building a greater vision that captures the imagination not only in a scholarly sense but also, vitally, in an artistic one. SOL is not content to tell you some cool things about the past they have learned backed with a kicking metal soundtrack, they strive to transfer that knowledge to a greater understanding of the life of the individual and the operation of the cosmos. The ultimate result of this is difficult to reach; one could easily argue that behind the complex maze of mythologies there is not an answer to be found. Drug-induced gibberish would also be a reasonable conclusion despite the band's claims to abstinence. But what makes the art fascinating is not that it offers you the meaning of life in a tidy package, but the ambitious undertaking it both encourages and represents - in a cliched sense we are here not to reach a destination but to learn something about ourselves on the way there.

The Yoga Of National Socialism is not just a lesson in comparative mythology, this is an exercise in the poetic application of myth to reality. As the ancients told stories around the campfire, interpreting the stars to explain the mysteries of everyday life, here too SOL apply mythic significance to natural phenomena. It is clear that to some extent, the band is caught up in this fantastic world and its apparent connections to our own - a comfort to us, at least, that the band isn't selling us anything that they wouldn't buy themselves. It is probably a requirement for the band to be inside that circle to create material like this. Our perspective as a listener is what is of importance here: we can eat it all up, go to the library and find the story of our lives written in the Vedas. Or we can dismiss it out of hand as meaningless, deceived by the basic riffs and d-beats that comprise these simple arrangements. These are the conclusions we devise for ourselves as we slip into the easy pattern of binary reasoning. But as noted before, there are things to be gained by playing along. And I'd like to think that those with a bit of intellectual curiosity will stick around and take a look. This is certainly not to suggest that the words of TYONS contain structure or insight of extreme intelligence, or that we will gain any sort of practical education for our trouble; rather that for those who like a bit of abstract thought with their Arts & Entertainment we can stick around and join SOL in their fun for a time. There is always something to be gained, for us unbelievers, in taking a look at how the ontological other half lives.

And behold; there is some literary consciousness going into the creation of this work. These guys aren't Homer, but they have definitely read a lot of books. Mythology, philosophy and history mainly - the type of history contained in books that mysteriously aren't found in the actual history section of the bookstore, like the Trever Ravenscroft work with which the band shares a title. As students of the Savitri Devi brand of esoterica, it is unsurprising that SOL would cast an obscuring aura over their work. Musically and lyrically, what seems obvious isn't always so, and what seems meaningless often has decipherable meaning - although this is not always obtainable. Presumably, coming from artists so deep into such a broad and unique combination of worldviews, many of the references on display here can only be truly understood by the writer. The band wishes to enlighten, but I assume their music acts as a release for them as well - adding a gnostic character to the work probably feeds their own worldview more than it benefits the listener. But in music too often the artist panders to the listener, holds back his true intentions to avoid confusing idiots with bank accounts - there is no such filter in place here.

The album begins with a simple enough introduction that gives us the overreaching tone of the work fairly concisely. NWO is the enemy, of course, the global world that takes away our freedom to fulfill our carnal desires, to be the natural ideal that our barbarian friend Conan represents. This entity, probably somewhere between a secret Zionist cabal and a metaphor for modernity, is what the music stands in resistance against as strives to be everything we imagine the enemy is not: abrasive, animalistic, and anti-commercial. But the enemy has still managed to place some restrictions on this album: though unrelated to profit seeking motivations, they are still financial in nature. Recording studio woes interfered with SOL's vision and it shows. Production is absolutely basic and performance quality does not reach perfection. SOL have never been shy about letting a mised note or an outburst of feedback find their way into the final product, so only a listener unfamiliar with the band or indeed the genres at play will be dismayed at receiving something demo-quality. Actually, one might consider this to be a bit below even that: the weighty multi-track bombardment of the Nazi Occult Metal demo noticeably contrasts with the thin guitars and minimalist mix at work here. This combination is the result of economically restricted studio time, so it must be kept in the back of our minds that this recording didn't come out exactly as planned (both in terms of the album's sound and the handful of tracks that time constraints demanded be left on the cutting room floor).

Razor thin distortion carries most of the guitar-driven songs, complimented here and there by variations like default-amp-setting clean riffing and strategically delayed reverb. The latter is effectively used on the centerpiece of the album, "Shiva Dancing". Bracketed by notable pauses of near silence that surprise at first but prove an example of forced pacing rarely seen in metal or music in general - a refusal to be confined by the restrictions of the CD format, the importance of the the centre of the album is enforced by this. You don't get to hear the track until it's time to hear it, and after you are allowed a moment of contemplation before we begin the downward spiral of deconstruction that composes the second half of the record. But before we go there, take a closer look at this centerpiece - I did say near-silence: "Those sounds by the way on “Shiva Dancing”, are actual NASA recordings made in space. They are what space SOUNDS like …", as we are enthusiastically informed by Camazotz. As Shiva (Nataraja) dances, he creates and he destroys. This is interpretable within the context of the album - before and after this point are hardly balanced (the album can be logically divided into two parts, one preceding and one following this song). Beyond this, it is one of the many songs we can hear over and over without deciphering the meaning; this is the power of SOL. Hypnotic chanting with the rhythm controlled by the echoing power chord strikes, a sense of tension and desperation is created between outbursts of deliberate action. Grab your Vel and slay Nataraja to break this cycle of creation/destruction is perhaps what we are being told, good metal music is largely an instruction manual for varieties of freedom, and SOL is no exception. The listener more versed in the lore of this specific location on SOL's mythological world tour will surely draw their own conclusions. But as elsewhere, the power of the music lies in its mysterious character - we are able to hear this over and over again, but we are never quite able to sing along in solidarity. A mystery whose solution may lie in the effort of solving.

Having seen the album's climax, we can look at the rising and falling action that surrounds it. The opening half is conventional, relatively. A stripped down version of the band's familiar sound, a handful of simple riffs to carry the songs, an attitude of aggression, violence, pride and disgust. Most of the lyrical content is confined to this section; the effect created here is a didactic one where in contrast part two of the album is almost purely visceral. "Volcanic Winter", for example, is built around a typically savage and unrefined collection of riffs. The multiple guitar tracks haven't even been precisely synced, creating a somewhat dizzy and appropriately explosive foundation upon which to build an apocalyptic metaphor. The comparison takes advantage of similar words - Fenris (Fenrisulfr) and sulfur - that are also displayed as having similar functions, the former in legend and the later in the wake of the Toba catastrophe. This connection is placed alongside an interpretation of the theoretical event that unsurprisingly leads us to some obscure and unconventional conclusions (the scattering of races? The loss of ancient knowledge through the vanishing of the stars?), these are exemplary of the level of detail that is present within these simple songs. The theme of catastrophe is ongoing in this album, especially as the first half builds to the devastating climax on track five.

Following Shiva's dance the threads start to unravel and a total deconstruction begins. "Piano Concerto #9" is the closest we get to a contemplative pause, a sort of retrospective ballad that offers more tangible emotion than can be found elsewhere in this band's discography. But clearly this moment of pity and perhaps sincere showing of human solidarity (though we might just as easily assume it is all in jest) is not intended as a focal point, rather it is a glimpse backward to our pasts and potential before we run headfirst off the brink, through primitive riffing into the nothingness that awaits beyond. Where part one of TYONS gets by on a handful of riffs, part two sees no need for more than a handful of notes in each track, and not a word is left to be uttered. A series of simplistic instrumentals (what Camazotz calls "ditties") hits us in rapid succession, like those rare concert moments when there is no moshing, no singing along, no frantic banging of heads, nothing to do but stand there with your eyes closed and listen to the band groove on a signature chord progression that could just as well never end. Given the circumstances around the album's recording, we can wonder whether this represents what the band intended, whether there were supposed to be some actual songs to fill up the last half of the album instead of what sounds like the homemade demo the guitarist brings to practice to facilitate the writing process. Intentional or by chance, the effect here is a unique and memorable one, and the downward spiral that is created - each track striving to a more base musicality than the last - leads us into the end of the show with purpose. It doesn't feel like anything has been left unsaid or undone, an accomplishment made more notable as the rest of this album didn't get finished and released until 2007. The sequel is hinted at, as though the musical deconstruction and silent eschaton of the final moments feel perfectly natural on this standalone album, we are left with a brief and dissonant "Interlude." An appropriate finale to an unfinished classic.

If you can’t stand Punk music then stop reading this review and don’t bother trying to acquire this album. This record is Punk/Metal Fusion in the vain of Absurd’s “Facta Loquuntur” album. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys from Spear of Lonignus were listening to Absurd while they wrote the songs for this record.

For the production it would seem that they had turned the bass and mid on there equaliser off. That’s right, it sounds like the music was recorded from a laptop speaker. It works though and treats your ears to something you won’t hear very often, unless you listen to your music through laptop speakers. The production on a whole is very crisp with very little distortion. Something I found interesting with this record is I tended to keep turning it up. Like the volume I was on just wasn’t enough and I’ll turn it up a notch but then find it still isn’t enough. If I didn’t have any self-control I would probably turn this record up until my speakers exploded. I think it has something to do with the sound dynamics or maybe I’m just retarded.

The person who introduces you to the music that will follow is none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes it did scare me at first but what he says is a very powerful line from the infamous Conan The Barbarian movie he starred in. Of course this is sampled from the movie, they didn’t actually get him in their studio. After that it’s straight into a catchy Punk riff played cleanly for the verses and distorted for the chorus. Songs take on the verse, chorus, verse pop structure. Actually the first two songs only contain one riff each that are slightly different for the chorus. The third song “Volcanic Winter” contains more variation but is still pretty simple. Not that these songs have much room for variation being all under 3 minutes. Vocals stand out in front of everything else and are nice blend between Punk and Metal. Camazotz aims to sound as aggressive as he possibly can without distorting his voice. The next track “The Sine of Satan is 56” is probably the most Metal track on this record and contains a few Thrash riffs.

So far this album has been nothing special but the track “Shiva Dancing” changes all that. What we get here is still the simple Punk riffs but more drawn out and with added flanger effects. The vocals start off clean but then get more aggressive as the track progresses. The lyrics, instead of being sung, just seem to be spoken over the top of the music. Plonked in the middle of the track we get some ancient chanting and to end off the track we get a minute of ambient noise. The next track “The Piano Concerto #9” is the best track on the album and is similar to the track it is played after. This is the only track on the album that shows any emotion. While so far the album has been in your face Punk this track slows things down a bit. The song contains very little vocals and is very repetitive yet the guitar riffs manage to keep your attention for the duration of the track despite being very simple.

The remainder of this album is instrumental. “Baggy Black (Not So Blue)” is similar to the track before it. The last three tracks step it up a notch in speed. They also contain a lot of groove that makes it hard for you to resist not banging your head.

So if you’ve listened to Absurd’s “Facta Loquuntur” and you enjoyed it I highly recommend you listen to this record. If you want some simple yet harsh Punk I suggest you seek this out too. If Punk isn’t your thing then this is not for you.