Malamorte

Artist: 
Album Title: 
The Fall Of Babylon
Release Date: 
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Distribution: 
Review Type: 

Malamorte are a completely new project with members of e.g. Lord Vampyr and Cain. It was formed by vocalist / guitarist Alessandro ‘Lord Vampyr’ Nunziati (also currently or formerly active in e.g. Nailed God, Theatres Des Vampires, Shadowsreign, Pavor Nocturnus, Sepolcrum etc.), with assistance of his Lord Vampyr / Cain-colleagues Silvano ‘Nighthorn’ Leone (think Fearwell, Mindaleth, VII Arcano, Hour Of Penance, Kalki Avatara and many more) on bass, and Sk (also formerly of Shadowsreign).

The Fall Of Babylon is the first result of this new project, unfortunately limited to an edition of 66 copies only. So I will tell you this before continuing: hurry up, contact the label now!

Anyway, The Fall Of Babylon consists of seven tracks, entitled I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and, indeed, VII, and it lasts for thirty three minutes. I is a very weird, eerie and ominous introduction, a cold-atmospheric definition of Drone / Noise / Ambient, so it’s quite weird to hear the rest of this album. One could have expected raw Black Noise Metal, but II shows another vision on Satanic Metal. of course it’s Black Metal, yet of a highly melodious kind, flirting with the Thrash-edged current. But it’s oh so weird and unusual, this approach. To go further with the track II, well it is pretty slow, highly melodious, extremely schizophrenic in melody-riffs, and filled with the most apart elements: weird vocals, a bizarre acoustic intermezzo, discordant rhythm structures, progressive riffing, but above all it remains somewhat catchy in execution. There’s quite some variety in melody and speed, and on top of it, this material comes with a sound quality that truly fits: dry and rough, unpolished yet still decent. It goes for all tracks on The Fall Of Babylon. Further on, there are some acoustic intermezzos (the one on V is truly interesting, and it goes even further, deeper and higher with a composition like VI – you surely need to check this one out!) and the general atmosphere is of the obscure and occult kind. No, this stuff does not renew the scene, nor is it ground-breaking. But it’s just another nice piece of Dark Aural Art.

Hail Cold Raw Records! I like it cold, I like it raw!

81/100