Dark Quarterer

The self-proclaimed godfathers of "epic progressive" metal music, Dark Quarterer are often overlooked within the epic metal scene in favor of American groups like Manowar and Manilla Road - whose importance to the genre, was of course, immense. However, Dark Quarterer's impact was also notable, giving rise to the modern Italian and Greek scene, which is where the style is most commonly played in the 21st century. To be fair, many of these modern bands seem more influenced by Manilla Road, but Dark Quarterer were at least one of the first such Mediterranean epic metal acts, and they really had their own sound, taking cues from classical music and progressive rock but pushing that fusion in a more muscular, guitar-oriented direction, seeming to stumble into the genre of "metal" almost by accident, parallel to groups like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden without really showing much influence from within the genre. More than anything, this feels like a band that wanted to play a neoclassical, thinking man's music, but just decided to put it through the filter of a rock band, with the musicians playing guitar and bass underneath the traditional, soaring vocals, rather than anything orchestral.

While the album, the first from the band, wasn't released until 1987, it really feels like something that could have been written in the 70s, with the metal riffing being quite primitive and often doomy - clearly this was post-Sabbath, but there's none of the rough-and-ready speed metal sound of Motorhead or Priest, nor the punch dual-guitar harmonies of the NWOBHM, to be heard here. More, this is basic, often proto-metallish riffing with the fancy guitar wizardry happening with the neoclassical leads. There are cases, like in the middle of "Colossus of Argil," where the band opts for a more traditional rock/metal riff structure, but even then the vocals make things feel a bit different than what we were used to hearing from a metal album in the mid 80s. Vocalist Gianni Nepi has a fantastic set of pipes, but he basically always goes for a more melodic, traditionally classical performance - not quite full on operatic, but close, not really adding any grit or aggression to his voice but very good at conveying emotion, and fitting in well with the complex classical noodling on the guitar. If anything else of the era, this sounds most similar to something like Candlemass' Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, though this is a bit faster and far less gloomy.

Structurally, there are definitely some more "progressive" ideas on display here - few of these tracks follow the traditional rock "verse/chorus/verse/chorus" format, and the songs definitely tend to be longer than one would expect at the time for a heavy metal album, with the epic magnum opus "Colossus of Argil" clocking in at over ten minutes and nothing here under the six-minute mark. As such, it's hard to call a lot of these songs "catchy" in the traditional sense, as they're not really going for immediate hooks but rather, they're intent on creating an overall atmosphere from the various pieces and melodies they put together. Nowhere is this more evident than in "Gates of Hell," which opens with an ominous instrumental passage and slowly builds up, adding some interesting bass and guitar harmonies that don't really create a memorable melody on their own, but provide a great background for the vocals and help to slowly increase the epic feeling and intensity of the music, and in this they succeed brilliantly. The guitar soloing towards the end of the track is a high point for me, but overall these guys definitely seem to have more of a classical mentality in their songwriting choices, creating sections more as "movements" than as verses or choruses or bridges, and at the time this was a pretty revolutionary concept to bring to metal, which a lot of progressive metal has continued to do in the intervening decades.

Despite being their first album, the consistent quality here is quite impressive - the band pioneered a style and managed to make the album all killer, no filler anyway, though given that the band had been around in some incarnation since 1974 there may have been a lot of culling and refining going on behind the scenes, with the final product being their debut full-length. Still, the band clearly had a sense for what works and what doesn't, and each songs stays fresh and interesting despite being on the longer side. Ideas are never milked for too long, but rather the band's progressive leanings allow them to keep introducing new things or at least to give a new spin on their ideas at some point so that there's always a sense of movement and dynamism to everything. It's a truly ambitious work composed solely of multi-part epics - not all of them attempt to reach the glorious heights that "Colossus of Argil," does, sure, but there's always a sense of things building on themselves to reach for greater heights, and the band is never afraid to try new things, adding multi-tracked "ooohs" and "aaahs" from Nepi at times, or at others going for long instrumental pieces where he barely contributes - in fact, "The Ambush" is entirely instrumental, yet it works wonderfully, feeling fully fleshed out and retaining the band's sense of grandiosity, rather than just serving as a guitar showcase as such tracks often do in metal.

Really, the only minor complaint here is the production, which is a bit muddy and has the guitars sounding rather thin in places - particularly compared to the band's followup album The Etruscan Prophecy, which sounds crystal clear, but it's far from unlistenable or even really unpleasant, merely a bit rough around the edges. "The Entity" perhaps suffers the most in this regard, as it often has multiple guitar parts overlapping, and things can get a bit jumbled, but it's still a fantastic track, and the band's sense of songwriting shines through beautifully here, the ups and downs serving as perfect complements to one other, the band pulling back to focus on heartfelt, sorrowful vocals from Nepi at times and just overall crafting a story that's full of interesting, memorable textures and relatable moods and feelings in a way that's both complex and intellectual yet at once engaging and entertaining, and in places feels like the pinnacle of the album, certainly at least rivaling the mighty "Colossus of Argil." The title track actually feels closest to more of a traditional rock song, with an intro that could have come from a Pink Floyd record, though the sense of progression and movement in the song structure is still present. The guitar work doesn't stray too far from what a lot of the 70s progressive rock bands were doing, though with a bit of a neoclassical filter. The band wouldn't sound out of place playing this material if they opened for someone like Rush or Blue Oyster Cult, though Gianni Nepi certainly stands out with his nasally emotive wailing.

My version includes the bonus track "Lady Scolopendra," which isn't bad but has significantly worse production than the rest of the album, feeling like an early demo track that never made it into any of the more polished or professional mixing sessions. It's a nice extra, but the extremely rough sound makes it difficult to get the most out of the sort of complex soundscapes that Dark Quarterer weaves with its multiple layers of melodies. Overall, this album is very, very strong, and provides a foundation for future epic metal, as well as showing that classical music has a place in metal and can teach us new ways to utilize heavy guitar music (others, like Yngwie, had already flirted with this concept, but not in a way that was as fleshed out or fully reconciled). It also anticipates Adarmelch's Irae Melanox, another classic which came out a year later and has received a bit more attention overall, perhaps due to being an early progressive power metal release, and this also utilized many ideas from classical music. While Dark Quarterer might turn off those looking for something more accessible, or interested in a faster, more muscular sound, the ambition and complexity on display here is second to none, and more importantly, incorporated into incredible songwriting and an inimitable performance from the great Gianni Nepi which transform this into a truly breathtaking experience and one that's absolutely essential for any fan of metal with a more epic scope or a more thoughtful, intellectual focus.

What a strange little something this is! Bizarro Italian progressive metal recorded on some faulty, magical device that pre-dates Mussolini’s upside down corpse by several decades, and it was only ever used once before to record a fascist jazz trio (possible song titles: ‘Corfu Incident in B flat minor’). Smoky, weird and arcane; I’m not sure there’s much out there like Dark Quarterer.

Certainly, you’ll hear some of this album’s heavy, jangle in retro bands like Witchcraft – but then again Dark Quarterer were already retro in 1987, making them more retrograde than retro or something. It certainly gets more stranger on this album than ‘Red Hot Gloves’ but it still comes across as progressive metal (not in its synchronic meaning, but rather 70s metal meets 70s prog), but in a way far more fully realised than the NWOBHM movement’s attempts in the shape of bands like Witchfynde. Also, its lyrics are certainly somewhat of an anomaly – dwelling on the nature of music itself rather than just stomping around shouting “Metal!”, but I’ll be damned if I actually as to what the ‘Red Hot Gloves’ are in reference to. Surely, it's a song for all of us who have ever sat in wonder at just why music can make us feel such a way. But my usual lines of comparison to bands with 'witch' in their names doesn't really do this full justice, as there’s some strangeness that I can’t really describe; it’s as if the band were hidden in some cave deep in Northern Italy and had to sustain themselves solely on their music and passing mountain goats…

Honestly, stuff like this makes Cirith Ungol seem plain as day; even if they do share guitarists with a curious sense of melody and a penchant for gargantuan, Sabbatharian riffs. But there’s other epic stuff as well, on ‘Gates of Hell’ Gianni Nepi reins himself in and bellows like a less confident Eric Adams, which, along with the rather prominent bass, comes across like something that wouldn’t sound too astray on Into Glory Ride (and we all know that Into Glory Ride is a fucking epic album!) Hell, I’m sure if Manowar quested during the 80s – and surely they must have at some point – they would have encountered Dark Quarterer as some ancient wizard warning them not to fight the dragon for its blood would surely curse them with one-thousand-thousand cheesy Euro-metal anthems.

As I said previously there’s something wonderfully brittle about the production here, it’s got more in common with a Darkthrone production than what one would normally expect from a ‘progressive’ metal album (quotations marks because I’m not too sure awkward time signatures actually equates progress). It’s rustic, a tad uneven in places, but overall it’s fierce. Mellower passages are given a fragile beauty by this flaky, decrepit sound, and yet at its most viscous and forceful the production makes everything feel twice as heavy as if a marble ceiling has just fallen on you leaving your corpse to be nibbled at by rodents with progressive tendencies. Overall it gives a sense of uneasiness and mysticism to the record that is so often lacking in progressive metal. I’d say there’s more Atomic Rooster than Fates Warning here. In fact, Dark Quarterer sound so very much like a child of the seventies that it wouldn’t surprise me if this was recorded in 1975, and then simply left in a cold, damp place for 12 years.

The band’s eponymous number is a heady brew; it succeeds in being both the album’s most disquieting yet assuring number. Nepi proves himself once again as very versatile vocalist; at times he seems like a siren wailing sailors towards the rocks, but by the song’s conclusion he’s powerful in ways that his shaky voice can barely contain. It’s got a wonderful juxtaposition between the meekness of the verses and a heavy metal fire that just burns so bright in the chorus…

Yes! Expose Rush for the fair-weather rap band they really are!

Roll its bones, usher in dust from a thousand centuries ago, as tonight we live again! And when all is resolved and settled, the outro comes and you’re left with a cold uneasiness that you can’t fully comprehend – but it’s just shocking; a startling exercise in suspense and tension. I love albums that end like this.

What is it about self-titled songs? Why do they always rule? I still don't think a Quarterer is a real thing, though.

“…let the evil be my food…”

And from the dusty and abstruse darkness of the late ‘70s shambles this mysteriously-monikered Italian three-piece, self-proclaimed as pioneers of epic progressive metal; a title that would likely hold more water if this had been released earlier, but since these six tracks had been recorded in ’84 and ’86 and the band itself had been breathing as early as ’74, I won’t begrudge them their skip through the spotlight.

Musically we have a further exploration of Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road while shouting ‘land ho’ with the discovery of Saint Vitus and even Nemesis/Epicus-era Candlemass, a good part of this thing tormented by doom’s ultimate presence, a stubborn aura that lumbers fully frontal or crushes a song’s backdrop with equal provision. The rest is a tumbling of traditional Euro flavor that’s slightly manhandled by semi-graceful hands, beating a rough, almost proletarian bumpiness into the thing, but that doesn’t sway it from striding through some majestic musical corridors. While opener “Red Hot Gloves” is the most traditional and least inventive of the tracks, demiurgic “Colossus of Argil”, melancholy “Gates of Hell”, and moody “The Entity” fill the mold Dark Quarterer shaped with a dear regard for heroism. Solos are lengthy, generous and unafraid, making up much of the colossal length (and whatever progressiveness) of “Colossus of Argil” and cool instrumental “The Ambush”, and with its somewhat muffled and far away-recorded sound, the record haunts with a ghostly, backwoods presence.

The vocals of Giuliani Nepi are usually pain-wracked, at times soaring shakily into the hemisphere just above the cloud cover of a normal tenor, at times red-eyed and untamed, but are less outlandish and rakish than those of Tim Baker/Cirith Ungol and are strengthened with an Ape De Martini/Oz-resonant security. Then for “Dark Quarterer” they’re all silk n’ butter, like most eras of Yes with an Italian accent, its tracts of serenity smooth yet trembling in diffidence.

Then there’s the progressive angle. Honestly, whether this record musters what passes for progressive is something to be judged by the individual listener, ‘cause with the prefix having careened into power metal, thrash, death, and much of the genre in general, progressive doom is a bit of a misnomer, and I just don’t find it all that advanced compared to what I feel the sub-style should enthrall with.

It all boils to a sound that is in fact grandiose and challenging to listen to, epic in dark places that may have already been conquered, but stands as a laudable attempt from most ambush angles. But when you’re listening to this and thinking by ’87 it’s a little tardy for the times, just remember a 1984 philosophy may have something to do with that.