Antonio Bartoccetti formed the occult progressive rock band
Jacula in 1968, naming the group after a comic book character, although they would not release an album until 1972, with
Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus, and from there, the band's history under its original name and the name they would more prolifically record under, Antonius Rex, becomes hazy and unclear. I'm not sure when they changed from Jacula to Antonius Rex, but the earliest evidence of the band releasing something under this name is in 1977, when they released
Zora.
A huge part of the murkiness to the story of Jacula/Antonius Rex is the band's mythologizing their own history with claims that no one has been able to verify, and most have concluded are outright lies. Case in point, the release of
Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex under the name Antonius Rex, and
In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum under the name Jacula. At some point, presumably after the '90s, Bartoccetti seemed to have gotten into doom metal and the band had developed more of a gothic metal sound compared to the prog style of their 1970s recordings. This carried over to not only the contemporary recordings under the names Jacula and Antonius Rex, but also some apparent reissues, supposedly of a 1969 Jacula album called
In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum, and two Antonius Rex albums,
Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex and
Praeternatural supposedly from 1974 and 1980, respectively, though no one can find evidence that these albums being released prior to 2001, 2002 and 2003, respectively. A third Antonius Rex album,
Anno Demoni, was allegedly recorded in 1979 but doesn't appear to have been released prior to 1991, suggesting a 1990 or '91 recording session for the 2001 through '03 releases.
The official story, according to the band, is that these albums, which all feature a similar heavy metal-influenced sound, were distributed independently in small pressings and didn't get widely released until Black Widow Records picked them up. However, most Bartoccetti fans believe these albums never even existed prior to 2001 (and in
Anno Demoni's case, '91), due to the sound of these recordings not matching up sonically with concurrent known releases by the band in the 1970s, which led to another theory by fans, that if the original versions of the albums were released in the years the band says they were released, then the versions issued from 2001 to '03 must have been heavily remixed with doom metal style guitar riffs overdubbed onto older period organ playing, as Jacula wouldn't be the first artist to overdub new elements onto a reissue of an old album, as
ZZ Top,
Frank Zappa and
Ozzy Osbourne had done the same to some of their old albums to give them a more modern sound aligned with their concurrent releases. However, in those cases, we know that the original versions of those remixed albums did indeed exist and original versions could be tracked down, but no one has been able to track down an original copy of
Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex, so the official story is generally disbelieved.
Whether remixed or simply newly recorded,
Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex simply doesn't show the musical progression from
Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus, nor does it align stylistically with
Zora.
Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus consists of minimalist organ arrangements, Latin narration and operettic singing in Italian, while
Zora has a couple of the same recordings from
Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus with electric guitar overdubs, showing a stylistic progression from experimental chamber music to prog, and not only does
Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex not make sense between the two albums, but the
In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum recording doesn't make sense as a precursor to
Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus, as
In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum not only displays more instrumentation than
Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus, but it doesn't sound like the proto-metal, heavy psych or heavy prog of 1969.
Putting aside the questions about when the recording was actually made or released, the main issue with
Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex is that it's earnestly a boring album. A lot of spooky organ playing and Latin narration interrupted periodically by heavy metal guitar riffs and programmed drum beats, both entirely out of step with the music of the supposed 1974 release year. The mythology of the occult ritual practicing rock band that was able to summon futuristic sounds is more interesting than what's actually on the album, and it's earnestly very frustrating that the band was not more honest about the recordings being modern and either entirely new recordings or remixes than to try to not only rewrite their own history but to somehow attempt to rewrite the history of heavy metal to put them at the foreground of it, creating an alternate history in which Jacula somehow pioneered doom metal prior to
Black Sabbath. The whole idea behind these releases was very dishonest and quite frankly hurt the band's legacy as an interesting cult band that released three unique spookshow prog recordings in the 1970s (
Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus,
Zora and
Ralefun, one of which was an experimental piece of dark chamber music, and the other two being
Goblin-esque jazz rock). And collectors can easily deal with some oddball darkwave and gothic metal influenced recordings from the '80s and '90s, but when Antonius Rex/Jacula put out three albums that they told buyers were recorded in the late '60s and early '70s that were actually recorded much later, it definitely hurt the band's reputation and made collecting their recordings an unnecessarily complicated and daunting task. If you're interested in delving into their catalog, the three albums to get are
Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus,
Zora and
Ralefun. Everything else is exceedingly boring gothic metal. Doris Norton, the organ/keyboard player for Antonius Rex/Jacula in the 1970s and wife of Bartoccetti, had a more interesting output as a solo performer in the 1980s with her pioneering electronic albums than anything on the metal albums of Antonius Rex and Jacula.
Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex never gets bad enough to be anything other than dull. It's hardly the worst prog-related album, but it doesn't match the height of the band's best work in
Zora and
Ralefun.
