Intriguing presentation on this one; 'Vox Inferi' boasts a stark red-on black cover, with a bloated and rotting, Autopsy-like logo floating above what looks like Cthulu as envisioned by Picasso. An ambient intro of weird metallic noises (scraping knives; clacking, scuttling machinery; eerie warped chimes) leads on to ominous, creeping guitars as the album reveals itself proper on 'Autofagia' with an onslaught on angular, thrashy riffs and harmonic squeals, throwing up passages of fast and awkward melodic riffing and simplistic, clattering percussion. It's short and choppy, frequently breaking into mid-paced gallops, but works in a slight progressive feel too, with slower surges of momentum and some laid back, unhurried soloing.
The overwhelming sensation is of primitive crudeness though, and it's a great sound, like some recently dug-up hybrid of thrash, heavy metal and dirty, low-end DM; clunky, falling to pieces but too stubborn to lie down and decompose properly. 'S.A' sees catchy and dynamic NWOBHM melodies and over-the-top solos sticking out like bones from a putrfiying mass of raw and filthy drums, clattering mindlessly one minute and swelling and undulating the next, whist 'Heaven Smiles' mixes the low, bassy twanging and ramshackle dives of Autopsy with the jagged, calculated stop-start bludgeoning of Baphomet.
That's a good snapshot of the album really: putrid, flailing, punk riffs and ugly, pounding drums in Autopsy/Bonesaw vein, but with the murky sloppiness interrupted by a tendency to slip into momentum-driven passages of tight, clinical chugging and blasting that has more of a (still extremely raw) tech-DM feel to it. 'Gabbia Di Contenzione' for example throws in fat chuggy riffs, doomy crawls, and salvos of taut, descending, blink-and-you'll miss 'em melodies with fast, simplistic, thudding drums, whilst 'Frail Bones' is a mix of rough punk hammering, creeping, slow, brooding bridges and complex melodic tangents. There's a lot of atonal-sounding scale-acrobatics in amongst the carnage too, such as on the tight-and-mechanical 'Epikick', or on 'Boot On You', which shifts playfully between chaotic and frenetic passages and demented galloping, broken up by slower parts full of badly warped and twisted melodies and more heavy, sinking doom riffs.
It's an appealingly strange listen- the album has an tremendous momentum to it, full of massive, thundering grooves, and yet insists on being immensely awkward at every turn, throwing in jazzy, sporadic, technical riffs that paradoxically serve to accentuate its ugly, utterly deranged flow. The melodies can be equally psychotic, such as on the excellent 'Mezzouomo' in which a solo begins tripping out to a tight, thundering drum beat, riding the percussive wave before culminating beautifully just as the song crashes back into the preceding dirty, chopped-up groove that makes up the backbone of the track.
There's a really manic variation in pace throughout the album too- 'Il Sole In Tera' is all about urgent, melodic stabs wrapped around a frantic framework, burning itself out in under two minutes, whilst subsequent track 'Il Capronero' takes a different tack entirely, centering around a crude and hugely rousing up-tempo heavy metal riff that marches along in between dirgey melodic passages, demolishing anything and everything in its path.
I'm really sold on this album. It's at once technical and crude, tightly ordered and loosely chaotic. The songs are short and inventive, with intelligent arrangements and gratifying dynamics, made all the better by a coarse and unsettling production and suitably unhinged guttoral growls. A weird mix of the cerebral and the skull-crushingly primitive, 'Vox Inferi' is definitely worth a listen.
http://www.myspace.com/nerocapra
Ross Taylor
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