Izvajalec: Aleph
Založba: Fuel Records
Izid: 2007
Ocena: 1.5/5
Aleph are an Italian band that’s been around for roughly ten years. The album “In Tenebra”, which landed in my hands and my ears, is the product of a long gestation. As the years since the band’s formation rolled by, the songs grew right along with them. And it’s wild to realize that Aleph are prog guys, even though they don’t sound progressive and don’t really play progressively. Good luck finding progressive rhythm-breaking in the transitions, counter-rhythms between the guitar riff and the rhythm section, drawn-out dialogues between keys and guitar and so on…. Nope. It works a bit differently. The songs are real snakes, built out of loads of motifs, which gives them a whiff of prog. So the older the band got, the older the songs got too, with the guys bolting on one motif after another.
It’s a blend of elements from different genres, from power metal and classic speed/thrash metal, even gothic touches, all the way to death metal. And all of it is covered by an extreme vocal that rasps brutally over the material. With this next comparison, worshippers of Chuck Schuldiner are bound to be offended, but at the ends of verses, the lead vocalist now and then pulls his chosen lines straight toward that death metal pioneer.
It feels like “In Tenebra” got run over by time a bit, and should have come out in the second half of the nineties, when overcomplicating things in metal was much more in vogue. Aleph are technically superbly schooled, and then some. Not for a single second will you catch a hint of the sweetener that likes to creep into today’s Italian approach to, well, pretty much everything artsy. The song Dephts features a guest vocal from a singer going by the name Scream, who brings an interesting operatic approximation of Queensryche singer Geoffe Tate’s singing into the gloomy, dark rage of this otherwise tirelessly driven Italian five-piece. The high point of “In Tenebra”, in terms of overall motif cohesion within the band’s otherwise complicated configuring of songs, and comparing track against track, is arguably Mother Of All Nightmares. Here the overcomplicating worked out best. Otherwise it happens a lot that the album waters down through fragmentation. Time and again an aggressive riff kicks in that convinces you and makes you wish it would last longer, and then the guys suddenly stop with a dreamy passage or some motif-wise ill-fitting trick that, because of poor compatibility, abruptly cuts through the high atmosphere and the red thread. In short, there’s just too much of everything. This is where that Italian naivety comes out, placed in the overdoing of motifs (not “kitsch”, don’t worry), and you can also feel a big ambition to prove themselves, which isn’t necessarily bad. It’s proof of a self-confidence that “In Tenebra” in no way hides. Interestingly, the Italian version (sung in Italian) of the song The Fallen, tacked on as a bonus track at the end of the album, burns on a much higher atmospheric level. It’s simply more convincing than the album opener in the English version, thanks to the more melodic vocal. With the brutal singing and the emphasized hard “R”, the track is a real treat for the ears, and the dramatic mood is created so effectively with the help of Italian!
My suggestion to the guys: less overcomplicating next time. They’ve proven they’re bold, skilled musicians! The production is solid too. Clean, clear, yet sharply pointed. So a bit more control, a bit more stinginess with motifs and more precision, so the next album gets a head and a tail and keeps its red thread, especially in terms of achieving dynamic consistency and consistency in creating high-drama moods. The potential is there. Now it just has to be steered the right way. Go get ’em, guys!
Lineup
Dave Battaglia – vocals, guitar
Lorenzo Fugazza – guitar
Giulio Gasperini – keyboards
Antonio Ceresoli – bass guitar
Manuel Togni – drums
Track list
1. The Fallen
2. Unfaithful
3. Depths
4. Mother Of All Nightmares
5. In Tenebra
6. The Fallen (Italian version)*
7. Acid Tears*
*…. bonus tracks
Album length: 48.19
