Immoto

Nero di Marte changed up their sound significantly on this new album although the change may not be so apparent upon initial listens. The band is still technical and intense like the overly post-rock-filtered-through-Ulcerate-styled-death-metal character of their first two records. This time however, there's a focus on sludge-filled doom riffing but within a hectic progressive metal framework, punctuated briskly with technical drumming. It is not an alarming change and falls squarely within the band's experimental essence. It is also their longest album and each song is heavy, frantic, minimal, dirgy, angry, atmospheric and foreboding all at once - and I mean EVERY SONG!!!!! There is a certain degree of sameyness about the whole affair but varieties of tone and style ebb and flow into the general maelstrom rapidly and relentlessly. It truly is "progressive" music of the darkest fiber.

The lyrics are delivered in both Italian and English in a voice racked with earthly grief and cosmic despair. Sean Worrell has always been a formidable frontman but he excels himself tremendously on here. His vocals are thunderingly present as he bellows and croons and shouts and tears out his hair - in the name of things never understood. He is intensely thrilling throughout the entire album and gives the album a soulful core reminiscent of someone like Primordial's Nemtheanga or the urgency of a Sakis Tolis. That is before he drops down to a sensual whisper and a plaintive murmur and you realize, the man is a singular talent. His passionate delivery works wonders in even the more tedious pockets of the album. Truly a wondrous highlight, this man.

Musically, the band eschews the tech-death trappings they seemed primed for. Instead, they make large use of post-rock tropes and encompass as many Mogwai and Swans traits as they can within their progressive doom sublimations. The production is dense and even when the minimalism arrives, it is taut and questing. This lends a certain tension to the music that never leaves. It unfortunately keeps things on the verge of detrimentally falling apart and each song seems to end unsatisfactorily despite having drawn out every last note and nuance.

Second track "L'arca" is the most explosively Swans-like with Sean Worrell crooning you into emotional disarray, shouting emphatically through the whole damn thing as the riffs melt into burdensome intensity. It is sandwiched between the album's most potent statements, in the form of "Sisyphos", a towering monolith of song that is the most superlative marrying of "doom" and "progressive" I've ever heard (drummer Giulio Galati is on fire here, throwing everything in dramatic thunderous loops and then anchoring them into volatile grooves; his accompaniment of Worrell's more searing vocal lines sends chills) and the title track "Immoto", a moody and emotional elongated wail of a song. It is bluesy in the way that only Diamanda Galás could be bluesy. The throaty exhortations of Worrell are softened by his melodic humming and sighing and there's haunting bass by one Andrea Burgio to drive the ghosts we've encountered home.

There's some noise and mathiness in the music but they are measured in delivery. The experimental bits are also hard to miss - like the off-kilter drum intro to "Semicerchi". It's almost like Nero di Marte substituted their fondness for Ulcerate with Tool. "La casa del diavolo" is the latter album highlight and it drips with menace and threatens the listener for twelve long minutes. Its weight is felt as it gradually peels its layers and it can be incredibly overwhelming but it is one to return to. It is a heartfelt and tuneful moment for the album and nicely leads into the quiet drama of the solemnly dreamy "Irradia" which is my current favorite. The album closes on a rather inconsequential note having finished with its wildest and boldest experiments. Not anticlimactic really, just not a rousing finale either, despite the redundant death metally harmonics and whatnot, which are just bells and whistles at this point. A strong album overall but terribly overlong and daunting for the uninitiated. I strongly suggest giving it a chance even when it wears you down, it will grow on ya.