Alex grew up around the corner from this Crimean War Monument

Despite our mutual affection for many of the acts that fall under the aegis of neo-folk, we don’t talk about it too much here on the site, aside from gassing up Rome when the opportunity presents itself. There’s a variety of reasons for that (the distinction between invoking fascist imagery for effect and actually being a fascist is hard to parse and we can’t be arsed much of the time) but we figured it’d be fun to mix up a tape that speaks to a few of the places where the nebulous genre stands in 2012. Enjoy our take on the ol’ apocalypse n’ acoustic guitar set, and if anything strikes your fancy consider picking up a record or two huh? Stream and download from the embedded player at the bottom of the post or click the image above!

Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio, “Do Angels Never Cry and Heaven Never Fall?”
ORE’s blend of classic neo-folk and skeezy, S&M-inspired lounge reached a frothy apotheosis with 2010’s Songs 4 Hate & Devotion. A record which would’ve gotten a lot of love from us were we up and running two years ago, it still gets a lot of play at home and in the club, and Bruce still carries fond memories of watching them play this tune while sipping on absinthe in a German forest. Doesn’t get much more decadent than that.

Dernière Volonté, “Loin Du Brouillard”
One of the flagship acts from the military pop wing of neo-folk, we don’t mind mentioning the fact that Geoffroy D’s history of ambiguous references to Nazism make us a little nervous. Still, his new material is devoid of anything objectionable on that front and the synth-pop elements on this year’s Mon Meilleur Enemi certainly are pleasing to the ears.

Cult of Youth, “Garden of Delights”
We saw these guys last week, and boy howdy were they drunk on tiki drinks. Still one of the best shows we’ve seen in a dog’s age, an energetic and punky affair that has far more in common with Pogues style shenanigans than anything Douglas P has ever gotten up to. Their new album Love Will Prevail is sweeping up all manner of critical hossanas from the indie elite, and hey, we’re pretty fond of it too.

Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat, “Harrow”
We wanted desperately to use a song by KtAoaBC, because for serious, we don’t think either of us has mentioned them in conversation without giggling for like 20 seconds afterwards based solely on their name. Their style occasionally touches on psychedelic and folky Nick Cave-Style Americana in a satisfying fashion, maybe at some point we’ll grow up long enough to write something substantive about them. Heh, anus.

King Dude, “Holy Land”
After a taxingly underproduced debut and a very sing-songy, DIJ-inspired second album, the third record from TJ Cowgill’s ridiculously named King Dude project is an exceedingly dark listen which has a lot of country motifs. Not so much on this track, though, which is just a big black wall of mean.

Rome, “The Beast Pain”
Quite likely the best man in the neo-folk game today, Jerome Reuter keeps on blazing at a pace which’d put most would-be weekend militia warriors in the ground. We both have copies of Hell Money coming in the mail and are keen to hear if it’s as much of a change from Æsthetik der Herrschaftsfreiheit as the sparse Fester single suggests.

XAOS, “I Am Not”
While not reflective of the odd blend of powernoise and industrial on Psychomancy, we really enjoyed this resigned, fatalistic closing track which just burns into pure nothing.

(We’ll be using our embedded player for a while as we’ve had some problems with Soundcloud recently.)