Returning with the first
Death in June album in over three years, creative linchpin/sole constant Douglas Pearce finds himself in the happy circumstance of being -- for the first time since the band's semi-industrial beginnings in the post-punk era circa 1980 -- in an artistic circumstance where what he does is actually in tune with the times. Pearce long ago came up with the term "Neo-folk" to describe the dark, gothy acoustic vibe of recent
Death in June releases, but
The Rule of Thirds would also fit nicely in the "new weird folk" or "acid folk" bins next to artists like
Devendra Banhart or
Joanna Newsom. The basic soundscape of
The Rule of Thirds is a single, prominent, close-miked acoustic guitar and Pearce's echo-drenched vocals, delivered in his usual doomy baritone, with interpolations from found-sound tapes in English and German, mostly at the beginnings and endings of songs. The funny thing is, the connection between
Death in June's current contemporaries and
The Rule of Thirds also suddenly makes plain an obvious musical antecedent that has largely been ignored by many of Pearce's longtime fans: there are songs on this album, particularly "The Glass Coffin" and the unexpectedly catchy "Good Mourning Son," that would fit perfectly on any
Pink Floyd album between
Ummagumma and
Obscured by Clouds. As a result,
The Rule of Thirds is in some ways the quintessential
Death in June album, because it places this band firmly into a continuum of dark psychedelia that's a more natural fit for Pearce's moody esoterica than the usual comparisons to
Bauhaus,
Nick Cave, and the like. ~ Stewart Mason