Gerber grinds out Gehenna-gaze guitar that blurs the line between the blessings and the curses in a very personal theodicy, not trying to reconcile the omnibenevolent God with the existence of pain and evil so much as express its inherent symmetry.
That most well-known, cited, abused and commercialized of all New Testament verses finally placed in a context that speaks to me. Philippe Gerber has been recording as John 3:16 since 2007 but this is his first full-length album and it holds together better than most of the gospels. John 3:16 is the Swiss industrial strength alternative to fifteenth-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, offering his own “Visions of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory,” as his subtitle announces. With tools as simple as the carpenter’s, not much more than a guitar and small drum kit, Gerber gets himself comfortably entangled in the holy abyss between above and below that Catholic theology has packed so tightly.
As it is structured, the album ascends directly from “The Ninth Circle” of Dante’s Hell (the lowest of them all, reserved for traitors) straight up to the “Throne of God/Angel of the Lord,” from roiling despondency to radiant bliss in one leap. Unlike Dante however, Gerber hops all over the heavenly map, like the death-bed fever dream of a sinner.
Gerber grinds out Gehenna-gaze guitar that blurs the line between the blessings and the curses in a very personal theodicy, not trying to reconcile the omnibenevolent God with the existence of pain and evil so much as express its inherent symmetry. “God´s Holy Fire” truly scorches, but what relief floating on the “Star of the Sea/Guardian Angel” brings, and what an intellectual roller coaster ride plumbing “The Inner Life of God” in all its triune confustion. At glorious variance with the canon, the closing “Fall of the Damned” is just about the most uplifting piece on Visions of the Hereafter, despite an authoritative voice stating categorically that “it is too late for them.” The gargoylian illustrations by William Schaff are an excellent complement to Gerber´s accomplished apocryphy.
Visions of the Hereafter is available on Alrealon Musique.
