I’ve seen this amazing album artwork pop up in numerous
places all over the internet, and every time I see it I tell myself to fucking
GET IT! But obviously my unfortunate procrastination habits got the better of
me and I didn’t bother to get it until a week ago, after TWO YEARS! I know that
Italy has always had one of the most prominent and diverse music scenes in the
world. Apparently I was wrong in thinking that it has since faded away. Along
with tons of folk, rock, neoclassical, jazz, and (most recently) metal artists
that have been continuing to blow me away, it’s obvious that I was more wrong
than I originally thought. For those of you that aren’t aware of the metal
artists that are popping out of Italy these days, you should turn your
attention to artists like Dark Lunacy, Lacuna Coil, Fleshgod Apocalypse (my
favorite), Deathrow, Depressio Aeterna, Fear of Eternity, Rhapsody of Fire,
Sickening, Theatres Des Vampires, Throne of Molok, and Inallsenses. Just a list
like that shows that there is definitely SOME kind of music scene going on
there; and that’s just a small portion of the METAL scene, wait until you hear
the modernized-European folk bands that are coming from there. But we’re here
to talk about the Italian technical death band Hour of Penance.
I’m going to tell you that I didn’t find out who the
vocalist on this album was until yesterday. And to tell you the truth, I’m not
surprised at all. The reason why was because when I listened to this album for
the second time, the first thing that came to mind was “there’s SOMETHING about
this that reminds me of Fleshgod Apocalypse, but what is it??” Then after my
fifth or sixth time listening to it, I figured out that it was the vocalist
that sounded a lot like the vocalist from one of my favorite bands, Fleshgod
Apocalypse. At that time, I didn’t know that Hour of Penance was from Italy, so
I didn’t make that initial connection that a lot of you out there probably
made. I then started to hear a lot of similarities in the music between the two
bands, especially the explosive blast beat drumming and the ultra-deep guitar
chords. So when I looked them up on Spirit of Metal to add them to my bands
list, I decided to look at the members because it said their current vocalist
had only been around since 2010. And I then saw that the vocalist on this album
was none other than Francesco Paoli from Fleshgod. And guess who did the drums,
Mauro Mercurio, the one who did the drums on Fleshgod’s 2009 debut, Oracles.
I honestly had no idea that there was a Fleshgod twin out
there. But this band obviously isn’t an all-out IDENTICAL twin to Fleshgod,
there are quite a few differences. But I don’t think that I should make this
review a comparison between the two bands, I want to critique this record by
itself, without mentioning Fleshgod Apocalypse every two sentences.
My applause to whoever produced this album because it sounds
astonishing and only enhances the listening experience. The thing I love the
most is how much fucking volume and BASS the drums have; it only makes the
music sound monstrous and apocalyptic (in a good way). I haven’t heard a tech death album this
powerful and angry in…I don’t know how the hell long…a long time! Here’s
something I want to tell those of you that have really powerful subwoofers or
have extremely powerful (bass-compatable) headphones: the drummer has one of
those bars that creates a bassplosion when he hits it. The funny thing is that
this is mostly seen in deathcore albums (where it is typically overused), but
it sounds amazing and makes me smile whenever it’s hit in this album.
The band is extremely tight and none of the members seem to
drift off for even a second. This is one of those few cases where the
visualization of having all of the members’ parts being squeezed into the eye
of a sewing needle is an accurate description of how tight and together the
band is. I love how the guitars are NOT overpowering like they are in almost
every other tech death album I’ve heard out there, but there is one problem.
Where’s the bass? Of course I can tell that there’s a bass player because I can
hear the BASS, but I can’t hear the NOTES that the bass GUITAR is playing. This
gets kind of annoying mainly for bass players like me because…I don’t know…if
you were a guitarist, wouldn’t it bother you if the vocals and drums
overpowered everything else?
This album is unrelentingly brutal and will leave you
shattered (if not in pieces) after you listen to it. Although this band has had
a lot more attention than I initially assumed, this is still an extremely
underappreciated album. I wouldn’t recommend this to people who aren’t quite
able to handle REALLY brutal bands like Fleshgod Apocalypse, Nile, Hate
Eternal, Whitechapel, and Brain Drill. I would give this flawless piece of
plastic 19/20.
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