Formed in 2016, this is the Milan based death / doom metal crew’s debut album and another decent release this year from Indian label Transcending Obscurity Records.
Five tracks and forty minutes of sci-fi themed doomy death metal might not be everyone’s cup of tea but these Italians have done the business on this record and I have no doubt this will cement their place in the death / doom genre…..a genre that for me, generally starts and stops at Asphyx so I was a bit apprehensive prior to playing this as long songs with a lot of wafty ambience are not my bag normally. However, this album really charmed me….if “charmed” is the right word.
The band has created songs of considerable atmosphere, depth & texture and I can tell you this sounds great on head phones. Soaring but tombstone heavy riffs one minute, dirge-like leads the next this never gets boring.
Album opener “Abominio” starts off with clean guitar and a really heavy bass sound before the pedal’s stepped on and we’re treated to a belter of a riff. Jacopo’s gnarly death metal snarls fit beautifully too. After a couple of minutes the song sinks into some more clean, atmospheric guitar work which neatly splits the nine minutes up.
“Decadimento Astrale” is a more straight forward doom track than the preceding song and has plenty of melodic lead guitar work and some quite inventive drumming.
At under four minutes “Oltergenesi” is the shortest track on the album and a neat instrumental.
“Esilio Nell’Extramondo” is stonkingly heavy and after a clean 1m40s intro leads into a crushing riff and the oppressive atmosphere is relentless. This is a really interesting track and probably the stand out number here.
Final song “Incarnazione Della Conoscenza” has a very slow build and before reaching a summit at around seven minutes in. The final charge of the song has an almost black metal vibe to it and is the fastest part on the record.
I’m no connoisseur of this particular genre but I really like this record. Definitely worth checking out especially for Hooded Menace fans. Worth a punt.
(7.5/10 Mark Eve)
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