“Only Theater of Pain” tribute
Сavity – Jacquy Bitch
Figurative Theatre – Ainsophaur
Burnt Offerings – No Tears
Mysterium Iniquitatis – Deadchovsky
Dream for Mother – Exces Nocturne
Stairs – AnteA – Rosa Crux
Spiritual Cramp – De Volanges
Romeo’s Distress – Noctule Sorix
Ressurection – Sixth Communion – Alien Marteens
Prayer – Skeletal Family
Deathwish – Violet stigmata
Dogs – Comedie Macabre
Desperate hell – Terrill
Over 27 years the Christian Death album “Only Theatre of Pain” is considered one of the most influential deathrock albums if not the most influential ever. Originally released in 1982 by Frontier records, the stuff of the album was covered probably millions of times by representatives of very different musical genres and several tributes to the band’s leader, Rozz Williams, took their places as well.
The European tribute to “Only Theatre of Pain”, released by Alone Prod Label in 2008, 26 years after the initial release and 10 years after Rozz’s suicide, underlines once again the endless influence of this album on the scene which is now considered to be called “gothic”, post-punk, deathrock or whatever as well as on several other musical scenes. Helene, the label manager, says: “The idea was to say what’s Rozz legacy in French (or European) scene in 2008, from new wave to horror punk. And we asked the bands to do a new song with a part of OTOP”. Actually it’s hard to say if the tribute stuff consists of really new songs, based on the OTOP stuff. It may seem that the bands which participated in the tribute felt the songs so close to their own musical approach that all the borders between their own and OTOP’s were tore down for this tribute.
So the release begins with “Cavity”, covered by Jacquy Bitch, and follows in the original songs order. Jacquy explains his relations with Christian Death: “I discovered Christian Death with Only Theatre of Pain and I was subjected by Rozz’s charisma. Unfortunately, if Neva played with Christian Death, it was Valor. I never have the opportunity to meet Rozz personally. It’s a regret. I don’t know if Christian Death influenced on my music, really, because I tried really hard to create my own universe, with substitute-language, strange performance. I didn’t try to copy or to sound like… Christian Death played with basic line up (guitar, bass, drums)… For my part I used to find new sounds with samplers, keyboards… It was not the same artistic approach.
On stage, when I used crucifix, I didn’t even know that Rozz did the same somewhere in USA…
But when I created Jacquy Bitch and included guitars in the line up, I was really interested in Rikk Agnew’s sound…”. This cover can probably be considered as the best example of mixing of band’s individuality with the Christian Death influence into one substance. On one hand, the cover sounds as if it was the song of Jacquy’s latest album “Stories from the old years”, but on the other hand, the Cavity’s motives and atmosphere are so much recognizable that it’s really impossible to say, whose song this cover is. “I tried to create my own song with Rozz’s song. I included keyboards and samplers and translated Rozz’s words in my own language… The stake was that people recognize Cavity while having the feeling to hear a Bitch’s original song. So, I changed the singing line and the tune… But guitars and bass are faithful… But I felt really shy to touch this symbol…”, – Jacquy explains. Well, he exactly achieved what he wanted to, creating the unique alchemy of sound of ‘82 and ‘08.
Next, a listener can discover “Figurative Theater”, covered by “AinSophAur”. It’s always unpredictable to see what a song of this project can look tike, and the band tried to find a way to cover “Figurative Theater” several times before they found the correct approach. ““Figurative theatre” took a long time to born again in our hands, until the day Phil said: “try it slower, and in a Spanish style”. I tried and we smiled!”, – recalls Toy, the band’s guitar player. So the version which became the final one doesn’t have much common things with the original, they seem more as parallels. AinSohpAur added mysticism instead of dark depths of the Rozz’s version, tempered play instead of the surface drive and cold, impassive but sincere vocals instead of that deadly sexuality we can find in the original. The band’s attitude to Christian Death can’t be called any other, but the great respect, probably that’s why the cover became such a personal interpretation. Toy says about “Only Theater of Pain”: “This record is one of the most important stone in the dark scene. They were, just like their “friends” from overseas, some of the first to walk these new directions of music, art and most of all life, and they leave to the young generations a legacy that a lot of people should know better.”. “Same thought: a major influence for a lot of bands”, confirms his words the band’s vocalist, Phil.
“Burnt Offerings”, performed by No Tears, the band which is foremost known as the cold wave one, can seem the straight follower of the previous cover, though it sounds much more passionate and has electric sound. Then, after a while, the rhythmical change to chorus turns the song closer to the original version, and a listener can see the figure of Rozz behind this cover. Paul Fiction, the guitar player/keyboardist, says: “Burnt Offerings seemed one of the easier songs from the albums for us. Originally it’s very unstructured. We had the good material too appropriate the song and do something that we correspond. I think that each band of this tribute tried to bring its own universe for each title listed.”, so probably this approach can be considered as the explanation of this structural division, which on the other hand, seems sequential. “Burnt Offerings” of No Tears has much more “landscape” melancholic approach, drawing one but finished picture instead of chaotic insane flashes, born by rioted minds of the young men who were Christian Death in 1982. Vincent K., the band’s bass/guitar player says: : For me, making a good cover means appropriating the song «as if we composed it», and it supposes to be able to take enough distance from the original work”. Hard to say if the band achieved that, but the balance between “No Tears” and “Christian Death” is kept perfectly for this cover.
Then a listener can see absolutely another attitude of Deadchovsky, who hadn’t “re-written” the song, but made it fit to their own style and how! Obscure intro changes to the main song’s line as it was in the original version, but in harder and less “fluid” manned with great additions of the band’s “labeled” schizoid thing, mostly reflected in the keyboard line. This insanity reaches its peak in the end of the main song’s line in the experimental “sketch” which sounds like a mad nightmare, and then turns to culmination as it was in the original (“Peru Resh!”) and finishes with electro distorted vocal line on the noisy manner. The band’s drummer Divarre comments the song: “Before we made that cover with Deadchovsky, three of us already used to play Spirital Cramp with our previous band. That was some time ago. But we chose instead to cover «Mysterium Iniquitatis» for this project. Actually, it was the kind of songs we like, twisted, many different parts. I guess I remember Helene, who came up with the idea of the whole tribute, told us it was the best song we could ever choose: a strange atmosphere, a loud and punk-ish melodies and a final rush! Too bad we never could play it live. Well, we wanted to make it sound even more «out of control» than the original. Lots of effects, probably too many… or not enough, it depends on the point of view!”. The general mood of the song is about to be kept, but Deadchovsky was the band which never forgot about the real word about us as well as the inside depths, so the cover became a kind of “void of wire and microchips for a human’s soul”.
“Dream for Mother”, covered by Exces Nocturne, sounds very unexpected as Christian Death song as well as the Exces Nocturne one. Corine, the band’s singer, still can’t exactly say if it was performed in the band’s style or not: “I don’t think the cover is in pure Exces Nocturne style (if there’s any…). I’m still surprised when I listen to it!! It was more like a one-shot, a real adventure… So Richard arranged it in an unusual color, something different from what we usually play. But still, you can clearly recognize Remy and his guitars! And I’m sure some people were not happy with what we did… but it’s the way we felt it …”. The cover, recorded with the guitar backgrounds has very much electro arrangement, and its attraction is that it doesn’t seem modern and fashionable. The rhythm can be called “wild” and “flirting”, Corine’s vocals are very sexual and feminine and electro “jungle” additions only underlines that primeval dance of passion. One more plus of the song is that though Exces Nocturne didn’t make some changes in the song’s structure, text etc, as many bands of the tribute did, the band gave this cover all the things it needed to be original in the sound and the atmosphere. Corine says: “I was not involved in the lyrics: I chose the song because I could actually hear Remy and Richard playing it when I listened to the whole album. It was a musical meeting. And then I read the lyrics and thought that would be fun …. And then we started working and I found it real hard to sing it, as they were not my words! And it was definitely not my way of singing, nor lyrics I would have written, and it was hard to relate to it. I find it hard to be comfortable with someone else’s words… So I almost tried to keep the meaning away from me when I was singing it, just like I was playing an instrument… I had to shrug Rozz’s ghost off my shoulders…! But then Richard told me to try different effects to sort of re-create it and give a new sound to it, and it was a brilliant idea! We liked the idea, and the result”.
The following cover of “Stairs – Uncertain Journey” is performed by the mysterious band “Rosa Crux”. Actually, the band kept only original rhythmical bass pattern and changed almost everything – the music arrangements, the lyrics, even the title (on the tribute this song is titled “Stairs AnteA”). The band refused to give any comments to this cover, keeping all its secrets. It’s hard to refer the Rosa Crux version to any musical genre, but it sounds in very much in the band’s style and could perfectly decorate and fit their works, such as “In Tenebris”, for example. Generally, it has plenty of shades, such as Christian Death (of course), Sopor Aeternus, Ordo Equitum Solis and others, but just shades and not the figures. “Stairs AnteA” has inexpressible atmosphere of medieval sacral ritual, in which angels dance with demons on spike of a needle.
The next track is the De Volanges version of “Spiritual Cramp”. The band’s bass player, Yvan, says: “According to us «Spiritual Cramp» ( the original one ) is one of the best of the album but we didn’t want to play exactly the same version of course! It doesn’t have any charm to play the same. And moreover it isn’t an easy song to play like Christian Death! Their version is the best of course! And we wanted a version in the style of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds…”. Has the band managed to achieve the Bad Seeds manner or not, – let it be a listener’s conclusion, but the version sounds quite related (“of the same family”) to the above mentioned covers of AinSophAur and No Tears because of its tempered performance, but on the other hand, this track is probably the most tense one of the entire tribute. The vocals are passionate and anguished, but clear at the same time. The musical lines has similar “tossing” approach from tempered accompaniment to culmination, but very accented drum lines create the anxious atmosphere during the whole song.
“Romeo’s Distress”, covered by Noctule Sorix can be called as one of the most contradictory tracks of the release. The band’s bass/keyboard player Noctule h. doesn’t hide his attitude to Christian Death: “Noctule Sorix have no really interests for the Christian Death music. The members of the band never recognized themselves in the Dead Rock Music. This is why OTOP never has represented an influence for the music of Noctule Sorix. So except for “Romeo’s Distress” played on the dancefloor often, there was not a real face to face with Christian Death music”. So, this band which plays a kind of coldwave with a bit mainstreamish approach took the song to cover it how they feel, and the result turned out to be even more sincere than Noctule Sorix probably expected. Following many bands of the tribute, Noctule Sorix made the sound more tempered and added their electro based approach, so on one hand the song hasn’t lost its dance qualities, but on the other got some different shades. “Many present groups on the tribute refused to work on this song because they thought it was impossible to make another song with this piece without betraying the spirit of the song… Noctule Sorix did not have so many doubts”, says Noctule h. And really, the changes which the band made, like insinuating, deep and slow voice, repetitions “after dark” in chorus and so on, made the song sound as “warm” melancholic and heartfelt hit.
The next cover of the tribute is performed by a person who has very intimate attitude to the original Christian Death. Alien Marteens, who for the moment is better known as the original “Brotherhood of Pagans” vocalist and “Jacquy Bitch” bass player returned to the music and started his solo career with the cover of “Resurrection – Sixth communion”. Let’s give a word to Alen in order to let him tell his story of participation in the tribute and his attitude to the band. “I remember myself at college, when we were taping vinyl records we couldn’t afford to buy, and listening to OTOP for the first time. I was like “What the hell is that ? These guys scare the hell out of me !”. I mean, I was moving from Heavy Metal and Punk music to Cold Wave and Batcave as my favourite kinds of music, and suddenly Deathrock was trying to possess me, disturbing, powerful, dark, original. Kind of revelation, you know.
And to know those guys were barely older than us then was very surprising. I mean, the whole album is like a story, you can’t listen to the titles in a different order than the one they are placed, it would be like reading a book with the chapters all messed up. The structure of the titles, the lyrics, and, of course, the way they are performed, made of this whole album a masterpiece, not one or two titles, no, the whole album is a true masterpiece, timeless, priceless, something rare and precious. So, when Helen told me she was gathering bands, I told her I was myself planing to go back into song writing with a solo project and I would be proud to be part of this tribute. She then asked me if I had some material she could throw an ear on and I promptly sent her a MP3 of the demo I was working on. She then just wrote me back those words on messenger : “OMG ! Deal!”. I guess she was pleased and so was I. Later came the rough time : choosing a title ! I mean, as I said, this album is a masterpiece as a whole, it was awfully difficult to pick up only one! I then picked Resurrection, for this made me smile since, according to fans and journalists, this title’s homonym was the masterpiece of “Tales of Vampires”, the album we made when I was playing with Brotherhood of Pagans. Nonetheless, this title is also very related to religious stuff, the darkside of religions, you know, so were the lyrics I wrote in Brotherhood of Pagans. So it was all good to me: familiar roots with my past musical experience and fresh work on the other hand, since it is my very first cover. As a side note, since I’m performing in Jacquy Bitch’s band (as bass player) as well, I’m also featuring on the title Cavity. And my best ever reward, as a musician, was to open with this band for CD1334′s OTOP anniversary tour in Germany. I mean, I met Rozz Williams long time ago in Paris, but I had yet to meet Rikk Agnew, James Mc Gearty and Georges Bellenger. The later couldn’t make it to the tour and was replaced by Christian Omar Madrigal Izzo, a great drummer and close friend of Rozz. Anyway meeting them and playing with them was a major privilege. Those guys are legends, and times you can encounter a legend in a lifetime are rare enough to not enjoy them fully in the right way …”. Indeed, the cover is very close to Alien’s personal stuff and to Christian Death at the same time, laying somewhere in between of two “Brotherhood of Pagans” line-ups and balancing on the border of energy and mature moderation, ruling out any “surface” changes of the song except very personal and individual performing and Alien’s charming vocals.
The next, and probably, the hardest track of the release is covered by a band which is even older than Christian Death is, Skeletal Family. Though the bands are about t be the same age, they hadn’t known about each other for a long time. Ian ‘Karlheinz’ ‘Spud’ Taylor, the original band’s keyboardist and sax player, recalls: “I’ve got to be totally honest. Here in the north of england we didn’t really know anything about any death rock scene so Christian Death were just a name you heard of from people who had been to London. Yes I know amazing isn’t it. Not only did we never meet Rozz we’d probably have been unaware of his existence at the time. We were just a set of punks really although I suppose you’d really call us post punks but to us there wasn’t much difference. Mainly we’d be listening to the Cure, the Banshees, Bauhaus or anything with a bit of a ‘punky’ spark”. The band made the cover last more than two lengths of the original version, rejecting the original’s experimental arrhythmia, adding their own rhythm, and it’s hard to guess if the band created the new one or developed it from the original version. However, the cover seems “Prayer” in spite of all those differences, but performed in more majestic and mysterious way than dark hysterical one. Karlheinz says: “I chose this song because it was the most difficult. There really wasn’t much to work with. It was a real challenge. Also even though I am an atheist I love the version of the Lords Prayer that I use which is the 17th century English version. I wanted to use different languages like Mediaeval French ( 1334 LOL ) but my accent is terrible. All the cutting and pasting of the words strips away any meaning from the prayer. It’s just confusion which contrasts with the more structured approach to the song. I tried keeping it shorter but this seemed to be about the right length. I don’t know why it just did”.
So, all the songs of the original “Only Theatre of Pain” are played. Seems to be all… but yet, a listener can go further and listen to three more covers of the “OTOP” era songs, which were released on the band’s “Deathwish” EP.
This new beginning starts with the “Deathwish” cover by Violet Stigmata. Nico, the band’s leader, says: “The song «Deathwish» symbolizes early Christian Death : raw and delicate, heavy and cold. We could have chosen many other tracks, but this one also stands for the very beginning of what became a cult band afterwards, and of course one of our favorites, although it appeared on the “Deathwish» EP and not on the OTOP album. «Deathwish» is an emotion in itself, according to its own meaning… It’s the attraction and fear of the unknown, much more than a stupid «I hate the world and I want to commit suicide» goth song. With this cover I hope we manage to make the song ours but still respect the original and Rozz Williams’s fragile vision of life”. Indeed, the Violet Stigmata’s version represents a very decent combination of the contemporary sound and the 80’s song without distorting it. The song’s rhythm became more aggressive and danceable at the same time, the vocals are performed in frightening clean way, but in some mystical way, this song stays “Deathwish”. Probably this ability of “keeping by changing” can’t be explained even by the musicians. Nico says: “It was a natural process. It was recorded as if we had to rerecord a VS song, with our sounds and musical approach”. So, probably, the band caught the song’s essence. Who knows? Let it be the listener’s right to decide….
The cover of “Dogs” in this tribute reflects the Christian Death influences on other kinds of music, in this case, “gothic” symphonic metal. L.C.F., the leader of “Comedie Macabre”, the band, which covered this song for the tribute, says: “Personally, I find that Christian Death is a very close band musically speaking about Metal, set apart the sound which remains very Deathrock. But the fact that we are cataloged Metal, we want stay free of our music. We have an entitled title “Le sang”, on our first album, this is pure Christian death influence, we hope we keep our identity to squeeze this tribute”. So, in spite of its paradox, the cover of a metal band sounds the most related to the original version in comparison with all other covers of the tribute. The only surface difference is the way it’s performed – the song got a bit more hard and “demonical” sound, which partly was achieved my additions of “gothic” keyboard lines. “In first we looked for a song very guitar for quotes him Metal and very unhealthy for highly-rated symphonic, What we wanted to make, it is to Play the song our mind, to keep a sound «roots» for » old cemetery » atmosphere, but rest guitars Metal and keyboards on base of organ and choirs to return the even more dark cold murderous atmosphere. To be frank, at the basement i feel this song like Sabbath under the fullmoon, this is one of the mystic Christian Death, this is why we have choosing it”, explains L.C.F., and the cover 100% has all the shades he wanted to underline.
“Desperate Hell”, performed by Terrill, which closes the tribute, can exactly be called the strangest cover as well as the most contradictory one. This horror punk managed to turn the original song’s beginning to the dynamic horror punk song, even with additions of some 90’s pop punk stuff, and make it flow back to the original “Desparate Hell”. The CounT, the band’s guitar player, explains: “We decided not to do only a cover, but more to rewrite it in our own style. Terrill is a horrorpunk band, this is the reason why it sounds like this. But also the melody is funnier as we planed while we worked on it”. So, this strong separation “Christian Death intro/outro – Terrill main line” adds plenty of contrasts to this cover, not only musical, but the emotional ones as well. Probably, there are some Christian Death fans, who calls this cover a kind of vandalism, but it can be called the contrary term – showing that there’re no musical borders, and the main thing is if a band feels a song, and that there’s no need to copy the original version. Terrill, due to strong style differences with Christian Death, make this challenge he loudest, and its personal business of any listener to accept it or deny.
The CounT adds: “I think it’s very important that kids who follow scenes like Batcave, Deathrock, Horrorpunk etc. know their own roots, so albums like OTOP will ever be actual”. Indeed, among many tributes to Rozz, this one can be exactly called one of the best. It shows not only bands’ respect to Rozz Williams and Christian Death, but it also strongly underlines relevance of “Only Theater of Pain” and reflects the MEANING of this revolutionary work not only to deathrock itself, but to the entire contemporary stage of the rock-oriented individual music. This release is not only for Christian Death fans, it probably will fit followers of many different musical genres due to the very individual musicians’ reflection of the original album’s stuff.
Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
“Grave Jibes Fanzine”
Back to table of contents
