reviews / 2014

MELAMPUS - N° 7

Name: MELAMPUS – N° 7
Item: N° 7
Rating: 5
Author: Michele Saran

2014 (Riff)

alt-rock

by Michele Saran

The two gems of Italy's recent sepulchral rock scene, Melampus (Francesca Pizzo, voice, guitar and keyboards, and Angelo Casarrubia, drums and loop), with releases like their self-titled EP and “Ode Road”, made a modest splash in the Italian underground, helped along by a solid support tour.

Their second album “N° 7”, released just over a year after “Ode Road”, picks up that austerity especially in the two Teutonic waltzes for keyboards alone (though with redundant drums), “While We Float”, icy enough to recall the late-period Nico of “The End”, and “Waltz for Nina”, built around pipe organ and wordless vocalizing. Less resolved is “Guardians”, with its crystalline resonances.

Many songs, however, disappoint, relying on the singer's verbose, frigid dirges and on uninspired guitar riffs, too often stuck on half-formed ideas: the melodramatic recitals of “GAD” and “Warehouse”, the Enya-style motet of “Hungry People”, the Massive Attack-esque dub-noir of “Rob”, and so on.

Mastered by Lorenzo “loz” Ori and Giovanni Garoia, with help from two quarters of A Toys Orchestra (Enzo Moretto and Ilaria D’Angelis), this is a coda that sheds almost all the electronics, distortion and inventive touches, drying out into tracks that are bare, short and somewhat rushed, chipping away at the atmosphere the duo are such small masters of. Co-produced with Locomotiv Records.

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11/01/2014

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Michele Saran, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition