This one almost got overlooked and it would have been a shame if it did as it is really rather good. The problem is that information other than what we have been told on the press release is impossible to come by, unless that is I have been looking in all the wrong places. Although it may well be ‘a return’ for Nova I can find no home page or anything about the group who share their name with at least 20 other acts. The blurb mentions Absentia Lunae & Spite Extreme Wing so I can assume that this lot are Italian, all the track titles are and who knows they could even comprise of members of said bands. At a time when information is so easily found and identified it certainly makes things all the more intriguing.
Concentrating on the music and as I pressed play the first time I thought I was up for a martial industrial listening experience as that is what we get with spoken vocals coming from what sounds like a radio and a slow drumming pattern. It quickly blazes in to a layered guitar assault as ‘Sangue di Corvo’ the blood raven swoops down, talons out and snaps up its prey. It’s incredibly melodic and a burgeoning black assault with vocals rasping away in the background. I am kind of reminded of Kampfar as much as anything else it has a feudal, pagan, heathen-cleave to it and frankly it’s bloody good and has you head-banging away as it furrows away. Some intriguing solo work spirals out and it’s evident that whoever this lot are they really can play. Songs are kept to basics length wise and are often left to fade out when you think they could have easily kept going for ages, obviously not something the band are looking at doing and approach wise it keeps things fresh here.
The vocals are definitely dictatorial for want of a better word at times rasping away with a guttural clamour to the stomp heavy approach of numbers such as Legione del Vento (Legion Of The Wind). The track is slower than the first couple of full on ones but no less hefty with it. But far from taking one stance I was rather surprised to hear clean hymnal like vocals added to the fray on Ave Vittoria making it all the more intriguing with the giddy fast flung instrumental approach which is really pumped out. Even odder is interlude La Danza delle Spade as this instrumental dance of swords takes us to far flung Middle Eastern desert lands full of mystery as the band take an ethnic approach sound wise far from anything else found here. Another thing that is striking me is how much reverb they put on what doesn’t so much sound like cymbals as one of those bells on sticks which Morris dancers shake around (highly technical description I know). The pace is kept fast and volatile pretty much throughout numbers like Rituale dell’Orrenda Visione going like the clappers and grooving away grandly never forgetting the melodic thrust. Another strange part though takes me back to medieval times almost, all very odd. This continues into the title track with sorrowful pipe before opening up into a gloomy melody that has ‘death march’ written all over it, before romping off again all glory and thunder.
Just to confound even more the album is wrapped up with an outro which sounds like some sort of tribe of Peruvian nomads playing panpipe type music. I seriously do not know what this lot are on but I like it! All I can say in closing is get bemused yourself listening at the following link.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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