U.M.A.

Progenie Terrestre Pura is an interesting band. Hailing from Italy, they take a relatively popular subgenre, that being atmospheric black metal, and inject it with some very creative new elements such as electronic music, ambience, and progressive rock. In preparation for their new sophomore release oltreLuna, I'm going to review the debut album now.

Production-wise, U.M.A. is far from the typical raw atmos black metal sound. It's not excessively clean by any means whatsoever, but it is clean enough to create a futuristic, spacey feel that takes advantage of synth and effects throughout. Psychedelia is pretty key here, and the backing ambient stuff serves almost as its own band at times, creating a gorgeous atmosphere of a serene, otherworldly utopia in the cosmos. The guitar tone isn't even all that black metal-ey, having more of a melodic side to it and only a little bit of tremolo picking, though we do get some in the final track "Sinapsi Divelte". There's definitely a bit of a crunch to the guitars. The melodies are both serene and tumultuous, epic in a rather unique fashion that evokes such wonderful imagery.

The vocals are especially interesting. Black metal screams are dominant, but they're rather different from the shrieks one would expect. There's a bit of a machine sound, otherworldly and alien. It's like if Shagrath screwed a starship computer. There's a bit of clean vocals, mainly on the tracks "Sovrarobotizzazione" and "Sinapsi Divelte", taking the form of very robotic droning, but done quite tastefully.

I think my only legitimate complaint about this album is that the drumming, while great, isn't really all that special. We don't have the chaotic yet still coordinated fills of Austin Lunn or the fluid transitions of Aaron Weaver. But what we do have is nothing bad whatsoever.

Backing ambience/synths are no stranger in black metal, but here they take up a whole new level of ambition. The electronics help add to the exploratory atmosphere and create a vision of strange worlds and locations. Little glitches throughout the music and eerie synth minimalism could be their own album at times, and the third track "La terra rossa di Marte" is in fact seven whole minutes of pure electronic (occasionally verging on house music) glory.

This is incredible stuff. It truly has a unique atmosphere beyond the nature-loving of many atmospheric black metal bands, and no shame to them at all. Spacey black metal really has a future in store and hopefully Progenie Terrestre Pura will be a part of that future. I highly recommend listening to this album while playing a game, obviously one with some sort of space theme. I recommend Stellaris for this the most. It fits so damn well!