DAY 6: JACULA - IN CAUDA SEMPER STAT VENENUM (1969) - 7 Days of Halloween in Music

 

Jacula’s apocalyptic debut is something seldom seen amongst the deeper cuts of late 60s progressive rock. Hailing from Italy and devised by multi-instrumentalist Antonia Barocetti, their debut album initially consisted of organs, piano and other foreboding sound effects. However, the re-release of In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum in 2001 saw the band superimposing heavy metal guitars over many of the organ sections, causing the album to lose much of its original obscurity. Despite this, the album still holds an enjoyable mystique in its grandiose displays of hellish prog rock, recorded intermittently between practices of mediumship, in which the band members spoke to demonic spirits.

Separated into 6 tracks (the subtlety shouldn’t be lost on you there), In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum’s sound foreshadows the coming apocalypse. The first of two 10 minute tracks “Magister Dixit”, which translates to “The Teacher Has Said It”, seems to transcribe a warning of this coming apocalypse that the album focuses on. The piece pushes it’s monumental organ chords on you as it progresses further into intensity, with the last segment of the song constantly changing key in a way that feels completely unsettling, as a familiar organ sound is played in a completely unfamiliar way. It’s a strong example of how the album taps into the occult themes that were prevalent around some experimental rock bands at the time. Where bands like Coven portrayed their Satanic themes through an approach similar to a campy 60s horror soundtrack, Jacula does so without compromising any of the haunting qualities of their themes. As such, it’s a shame that many of the album’s organ sections were tainted with distorted guitar overdubs.

One of the most intriguing aspects of discovering Jacula is the way in which they played their Satanic themes completely straight, with organs and pianos giving the listener a truly haunting demonic experience. However, the guitar overdubs playing what sounds like rejected Celtic Frost riffs only end up making the album a far campier affair. Part of the mystique of Jacula is that they had all these intense and apocalyptic musical ideas before early black metal bands such as the aforementioned Celtic Frost we're bringing them into the kitschy side of 80s metal. It seems that in adding these guitar superimpositions, In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum loses much of its initial intrigue.

Despite the liberties that the album re-release takes, Jacula’s debut is still absolutely worth checking out. There was no other musical project like it at the time, as it seems to take the pretentiousness of progressive rock and fill it with a completely taboo theme, of which the album uses its genre’s prestige to provide the listener with a truly haunting affair that foretells the coming of Satan himself. Added to this is the fact that the album was recorded in between sessions of the band members speaking to spirits through use of a medium, as well as the fact that the album was never kept up to date in a back catalogue, makes In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum an intriguing and wholly unique record, especially for it’s time. It holds all the mystique that 90s black metal bands would eventually attempt to emulate, before Jacula was even rediscovered through the internet. For that reason I think you should give these tracks a listen:


MAGISTER DIXIT

TRIUMPHATUS SAD

IN CAUDA SEMPER