RUNES ORDER

"X: Final Solution!"

Creative Fields Rec. - 2007

CD

Runes Order are back with what, since the quite programmatic title, seems to be their last work ever. Apparently, Claudio Dondo decided to put an end to his nearly twenty years-old creature to eventually move onto different territories. Assisted as usual by 3vor, on this new CD he's following the path taken with the previous, excellent "The Hopeless Days" to forge the closing chapter of the Runes Order adventure. "X: Final Solution!" features what are surely the most violent and aggressive moments ever created by the electronic alchemists from Genoa.

The opening is entrusted to the excellent and extremely sinister "...Could Be The Last Year", a blend of oppressing electro beats, analogue sounds, Goblinesque keyboards and an undead voice mourning in the middle. Genuinely old-school industrial is following "Radiations Of Peace", with its heavy metal thuds, hissing distorted frequencies and inhuman roaring vocals, while even more experimental, in the vein of even early Cabaret Voltaire, TG or SPK, are the desolated sceneries evoked by "Ambient # 1 (Snuff Room 66)", "Fragments Of Delirium" or "Ambient # 3 (Hell)". Memories of Runes Order's classic sound emerge into the gloomy rides of "Final Solution!" and "Victims Of Chronic Disease". Few tracks switch to a pure electro sound, sometimes close to early EBM or even Kraftwerk, like the long and exhausting "This Is Serenity", other times more similar to the harsh school of :Wumpscut:, like the powerful and thrashing "Final Solution! II" (featuring the voice of Marco "Mannequin" Grosso), possibly the most intense and convincing moment of the CD.

"X: Final Solution!" is not at all an easy or pleasant listening, on the contrary, it's tortuous and dissonant, the ideal soundtrack for a hopeless farewell like the one Runes Order seem to pronounce with this last album. Older fans of Claudio Dondo's depressing cosmic ambient landscapes might get a little disappointed by the harsh electro and noisy experimental direction taken by his audio epitaph, but, on the other hand, industrial fans won't surely fail to appreciate it. Once the distorted space frequencies of closing "Last Breath" have dissipated in the air, all left to us will be the wait to see what Claudio Dondo's next music creations are going to sound like.

- Simon V.

Website: http://www.creativefields.net

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/runesorder