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Category: Incantation

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Any band that has been around long enough will eventually become judged by the merits of its imitators. After all the easiest way for a young band to find its footing is by following in the footsteps, sometimes directly, of its inspirations and influences. Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Dying Fetus, and Krisiun at various points all have been the subject of imitation on a smaller or larger scale. Pennsylvania death metal combo Incantation weren’t part of that select group until sometime around 2008 when bands as Dead Congregation and Father Befouled sprung up and popularized the sound with those for whom the original was too difficult to comprehend. In the decade-plus since the first copycats wormed their way out of whatever unconsecrated ground they called home the original is still unsurpassed and in their old age have been experiencing something of a conceptual rejuvenation that knows no equal.

Since 2013 Lombardy, Italy-based Ekpyrosis has been conjuring something of a little infernal storm of themselves. Our introduction to them was with their commendable “Witness His Death” EP from 2015. While no paragon of originality it captured enough of that murky atmosphere that has been Incantation’s calling card since the very beginning. Two years later their proper debut “Asphyxiating Devotion” followed and while nothing fundamentally changed about Ekpyrosis’ sound in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t quite as narrow in how it choose to imitate Incantation. “Primordial Chaos Restored” continues that evolution and it sounds as if, slowly but surely, Ekpyrosis is etching out its own identity while staying loyal to the old masters. The only real significant change that Ekpyrosis underwent is the ousting of bass guitarist Marco Cazzaniga and the recruiting of Gianluca Carrara in his stead. The transition with Carrara is seamless and he debuts commendably on “Primordial Chaos Restored”. One of Ekpyrosis’ greatest strengths is the vocal interplay between Marco Teodoro and Nicolò Brambilla that is a dead ringer for both Daniel Corchado and John McEntee, but our favorite member is drummer Ilaria Casiraghi. Casiraghi (or Curly, as we frequently call her) is of the Kyle Severn, Rick Miah, and King Fowley school of drumming and probably understands better than anyone else that less is always more.

There’s something to be said about how well Ekpyrosis masters their chosen style when a track like ‘Abyssal Convergence’ sounds as if it was culled from “Profane Nexus” or a similar recent Incantation offering. ‘Instigation Of Entropy’ opens with a riff scheme reminiscent of ‘Desecration (Of the Heavenly Graceful)’. ‘Conception From Nothingness’ echoes ‘Sempiternal Pandemonium’ and ‘Crown Of Decayed Salvation’ at various points. ‘Chaos Condensing’ is an atmospheric acoustic instrumental and the first of its kind that Ekpyrosis has written, to our recollection at least. It seems only fitting that Ekpyrosis would conclude its latest EP with a faithful rendition of Incantation staple ‘Devoured Death’ (at least they were so smart not to cover ‘Profanation’, ‘Unholy Massacre’ or ‘Deliverance Of Horrific Prophecies’, which would be the obvious, and thus predictable, choices). It would be interesting to hear Ilaria tackle Dave Culross’ more technicaly challenging material from “The Infernal Storm”. At its best it’s almost impossible to tell Ekpyrosis apart from Incantation. At various points this really sounds like a long-lost Incantation recording, probably from somewhere between the Daniel Corchado, Mike Saez - and John McEntee fronted eras.

The Stockholm influence that permeated “Witness His Death” and parts of “Asphyxiating Devotion” has completely disappeared and Ekpyrosis is now fully embracing its ancient New York death metal sound. To fans of Incantation, Morpheus Descends, Autopsy, Winter, and the like this EP will sound instantly familiar and there are more than a few things to cling to. ‘Chaos Condensing’ is, by far, the most adventurous track present, primarily because it captures that old Italian horror atmosphere so wonderfully. Not that we’re expecting Ekpyrosis to suddenly turn all Goblin and go all psychotronic and psychedelic. This is about the last band where you’d expect funky bass licks like Fabio Pignatelli or mind-bending keyboards like Claudio Simonetti but the macabre horror atmosphere is certainly worth exploring further. Also not unimportant in this particular equation is the production from Carlo Altobelli. Rather befitting it leans more towards something murky as “Onward to Golgotha” than the bare-bones Sunlight Studio approximation of his earlier productions for this band.

What really sells “Primordial Chaos Restored” is the absolutely stellar cover drawing from Raoul Mazzero for View from the Coffin. It effectively captures the funereal, murky essence of the cavernous death metal that Incantation pioneered. In the second half of the nineties (when it was anything but trendy to imitate Incantation) Canadian one-man act Darkness Eternal pretty much reigned supreme in the field. These days the field is considerably more populated with all the good and bad that entails. Ekpyrosis clearly love the various incarnations of Incantation and “Primordial Chaos Restored” doesn’t focus on any era specifically. Ekpyrosis is, at least as far as we’re concerned, the leader in a growing movement of underground metal acts that steer away from the mechanical, sterile, and frankly, lifeless hyperspeed death metal that Hour Of Penance, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Hideous Divinity have specialized in. They are, along with Ferum, Amthrya, and Resumed, the future of the Italian underground. The catacombs are churning and Ekpyrosis has been spat from the darkness. At some point this sort of death metal will become the norm again. To paraphrase Hellhammer: “Life is just an illusion, only Ilaria is real.”

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One of the greatest perks of reviewing music (if you manage to overcome or, better, avoid becoming a bitter jaded cynic that no longer gets excited by anything in the process) is discovering talented musicians waiting to break out and seeing the formation of new bands as they happen. Ferum (no, this band isn’t called Perun, even though Cianide obviously was a key influence and they even cover the song ‘Funeral’ from them) is an Italian death/doom trio that is barely a year old but already scored a recording contract with Everlasting Spew Records and Unholy Domain Records for their debut EP “Vergence”. Ferum is made up of three seasoned underground veterans (two of whom have been in a band together earlier) and it’s evident that the darkness in the Italian catacombs is very much alive. It’s a rare and distinct pleasure discovering a band this young that has conceptualized its vision and overall direction of choice so precisely. Ferum is one such band and it makes a scribe as yours truly content to be a music critic.

Angelica Pinetti (left), Samantha Alessi (middle), and Matteo Anzelini (right)

Samantha Alessi is a girl in the Italian underground metal scene whose progress as a songwriter and musician we’ve been monitoring with great interest over the last couple of years. Suffice to say the redhaired miracle has been in a number of different constellations during that time, but the newly forged Bologna-based Ferum (Latin for “fierce”) is the first unit where she is in complete creative control. “Vergence” (or ‘the simultaneous movement of both eyes in opposite directions to obtain or maintain single binocular vision’, also sprach the infinitely wise Wikipedia) is a summation of virtually every band and genre Alessi has dipped her tiny toes in prior to its formation in 2017. Samantha is a girl close to our black heart. Bodacious, vivacious, multi-talented (she plays guitar and bass guitar next to her singing) and with an excellent taste in music to boot. To be entirely frank we were sold on Ferum without even having heard a single note of music. Samantha has put her money where her mouth is. Acta non verba. “Vergence” thankfully lives up to every one of our assumptions in terms of how we imagined Ferum would sound.

For an Italian band Ferum sounds distinctively Swedish. At least as far as its riffs are concerned. “Vergence” is permeated with the influence of Unleashed (“Where No Life Dwells”, “Shadows in the Deep”) and Necrophobic (“The Nocturnal Silence”), its charnel doom passages recall the darkest moments of early Asphyx (“Embrace the Death”, “The Rack”) as well as Autopsy’s “Mental Funeral” whereas the general direction is somewhere along the lines of Death’s primitive beginnings with “Scream Bloody Gore” and “Leprosy” with a thoroughly morbid and decrepit disposition not unlike Blasphereion. Samantha’s sickly rasps and bellowed grunts sound absolutely monstrous without ever becoming overly guttural or exceedingly serpentine. Matteo Anzelini’s bass guitar is positively thundering with a full-bodied tone that would make Demilich and Gorefest proud. Angelica Pinetti’s drumming is fitting for the style holding the middleground somewhere between Kyle Severn from Incantation, Ilaria Casiraghi from Ekpyrosis, and King Fowley from Deceased (circa “Luck Of the Corpse”). In other words, these two girls and guy know their underground classics, and it shows. Ferum plays it far closer to the chest than, say, Amthrya – but like them “Vergence” is bereft of any modern influences, which is one of the EP’s biggest selling points. The only thing we sort of miss is a nicely laid out explosive guitar solo or two, but that's mere nitpicking, not a complaint.

‘Siege Of Carnality’ is equal parts “Seven Churches” Possessed, Death circa “Scream Bloody Gore” and any early European death/doom metal pioneer of note with a churning Swedish death metal main riff. ‘Perpetual Distrust’ has guest vocals from Marko Neuman from Finnish funeral death/doom metal combo Convocation (their debut “Scars Across” had some of the greatest artwork in the underground this year). It is by far the most Incantation sounding track of the EP, which is never a bad thing. During its more psychedelic moments it is reminiscent of now defunct Riti Occulti (circa 2012) without said band’s overt retro occult metal imagery and production aesthetic. ‘Subconscious Annihilation’ further explores the doom metal direction of the preceding track and hints that Ferum could very well head into a diSEMBOWELMENT “Transcendence into the Peripheral” direction if they so desired.

Not even the closing (and somewhat swinging) psychedelic stoner riff feels out of place eventhough it stands in stark contrast to the rest of the track. ‘Funeral’ is played true to form and Ferum is at its best when playing slow grinding deep cutting Cianide riffs. The brooding outro ‘Ed è Subito Sera’ (‘And then it is Night’) is a black as pitch dirgey doom waltz in tradition of Winter, Sempiternal Deathreign, and (who else?) Cianide set to a poem of Sicilian novelist, Hermetic poet and Nobel laureate Salvatore Quasimodo with a prominent place for Anzelini’s bass guitar. There’s a minor undercurrent of psychedelic – and stoner doom metal to some of the riffing and overall atmosphere with Ferum. Not exactly surprising considering some of Alessi’s and Pinetti’s prior bands but it tends to contrast heavily with their fully realized traditional death/doom metal direction.

If one was to compare Ferum to any of the classic bands it would be earliest Hypocrisy, especially “Penetralia” and “Obsculum Obscenum”. Like that band Ferum has the meanest crunch and Samantha’s beastly bellows are as everlasting spewed and vociferously vomited as any of the classic European death metal bands. The similarity in delivery to Acrostichon circa “Engraved In Black” is fairly obvious. Over the last fifteen or so years Italy has become the new Poland in terms of housing some of the fastest, most mechanical and inhumanly technical death metal that is about as glossy as it is soulless. Thankfully that movement is now countered by a resurgence of so-called “cavernous” death metal acts out of the underground. Ferum clearly knows their American and European genre classics. There used to be a time when death metal like this didn’t came with the redundant old school or cavernous prefix and things were easier and simpler back then. Ferum has no intention of reinventing the wheel and they don’t do so either. There’s a dire need for bands as Ekpyrosis, Ferum and Amthrya that defy convention where/whenever they can. Modern death metal tends to retroactively date itself through the usage of all of the usual cover artists and production techniques. Ferum lives and breathes death metal the way it was intended. Samantha never disappoints, and neither does she here. The Latin proverb corvus oculum corvi non eruit never rang truer.