Promo 1994

This band can rightfully be called Necrophagist’s ancestor, although I doubt those guys have ever heard of this Italian outfit. This is not surprising, for despite their 14 year existence, and a couple more under the name Internal Bleeding, they managed to record 4 songs, 10 years apart. All we have form these guys are two promos of material so technical, melodically inspired and devastatingly catchy, yet off beat, that even the most avid fans of technical metal will find something to grab onto. Seriously, this band has an old school sound, mixed with massive technicality not only ahead of their time, but ahead of ours as well.

The two tracks are both above five minutes, are full of solos and leads, and have some good head banging riffs (in 5/4 none the less), as well as tighter than hell drumming, with no blast beats, however, hardly any double time even. Mostly it is just double bass driven, groove laden sweet ass riffing with multiple interlocking rhythm patterns. The combination of these two is what sucks you in basically, because it is so tight there has bound to be a vacuum at work somewhere within these songs, and indeed, the pull is very strong. It is as if you were listening to a slow Suffocation mixed with At The Gates and Necrophagist, in terms of soloing at least. Their song structures are their own for sure, however. I can recommend this to anyone who likes metal, because it is not as offensive as most death metal, and as such does not have such a scare factor for would be fans as most death metal. The vocals are relatively clean, sometimes almost spoken word like, and a little powerless almost, but it fits the music perfectly, even putting words on this is a most precarious idea, and the singer does a good job at not shooting himself in the foot.

This album is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with the metal scene however. While a band like this is constantly releasing promos so that people might give them money to record an album, we also have megalomaniacal opera rock ‘metal’ bands with grandiose stage shows of which only a fraction of the cost would be enough to make an album for these guys, who are absolutely professional musicians. Sad state of affairs but it is true, and with the underground being as big as it is, bands like this are often drown out amongst more aggressively marketed, shittier bands. So do not believe the hype, think for your fucking self and do some discovery. If more people would, there would be less of this tragic occurrence happening to less good bands.