We are slightly late to this particular funeral. Mind you the same could be said for the cult Italian act who have been relatively quiet as far as new studio material has been concerned after last album ‘Spiritual Independence’ in 2014. Breaking that silence with EP ‘Wisdom – Vibration – Repent’ last year they have finally pulled back the veil and uncovered their highly anticipated ‘Black Mirror.’ As we prepare to gaze into it, the question is what horrors are we going to confront within?
Having been around since the mid-80’s this band has always been on the mysterious side and led by Wilderness Perversion and an ever revolving coven of ghouls stuck to a similar musical ethos as many from Italy by not being the most straightforward of acts. Although Black Metal is at the heart of things here there are also a varying display of other musical aspects within the folds of their work moving from self-described necromantic doom to black thrash along with no shortage of classic sounding heavy metal prolifically displayed by Simone Rendina’s fast flowing lead guitar work. Apart from the addition of a new drummer, the line-up appears intact from the last album and musically they have not strayed far from former sermons.
Starting with mood setting piano, ‘Restless Death’ sees them moving from coffin clad slumber into tones of abysmal doomy grief and then suddenly flying from the tomb with bloodthirsty chaos very much on their mind. Counterpoising gloomy and grim moribund atmospheres to rampant gallops is what they do best and here they are adept at sending shivers down spines and then delivering bloody lashes to their victims in equal measures. Wilderness Perversion’s craggy rasps sound totally ghoulish and by the time he is snarling out elongated screams urging us to “Die” we are in the midst of a particularly gruesome horror-show. Head banging is urged by rattling bass and rolling drum work on ‘The Secret Lost’ and although there is a sense of groove and even a bit of fun behind things they never take things quite into the more camp and theatrical side of things like countrymen Death SS. This it could be said is the true essence of horror without the need of dressing up like monsters. With some cool rim-shot rolls from the drums and flailing lead work songs like ‘Ritual Unction’ strikes as the work of cloaked devilish fiends working up a sweat in deepest darkest dungeons.
‘Into The Oblivion’ sticks out a bit with a mix of everything from spooky classical sounding intro to a flourish of guitar shredding. Bass is always nice and thick reminding of those from the renowned Italian progressive rock scene so skilled at enhancing many a film and by the imaginatively entitled ‘Rattle Breath’ we could well be in the midst of just such an epic. The fact that WP moves into even stranger tones on this than his otherwise cadaverous gargles makes it all the more sinister. With eleven tracks here it took a while for them to truly get beneath the skin but once the ‘Nocturnal Coven’ truly opens things up with some glistening subterranean guitar shards and even some jazzy and experimental noodling it all starts to make sense and proves why the band are so revered within the Italian scene that spawned them. ‘Mistress Of Sorcerer’ puts visions of Argento’s Three Mothers in mind, if only they had someone like Cadaveria or Sonya Scarlet providing some guest vocals it would be a perfect blazing Inferno but perhaps I’m overthinking things. That aside the backing vocals give it some extra clamour and it’s another stand out track.
There’s plenty here to keep long-serving fans captivated and ‘Black Mirror’ is a grimly entertaining album from these denizens of death. Perhaps it might even see them making a rare live appearance on these shores once more? The Live Evil show of 2015 was after all quite some time ago.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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