Bandcamp There is a very specific corner of the underground that the title Italian Dark Sound points straight at: the horror-doom lineage of Death SS, Paul Chain, Black Hole and the theatrical occult metal Italy has been quietly perfecting since the early 1980s. Midryasi’s Kult, a collective built from members of DoomSword, Cultus Sanguine and a handful of other long-running Italian bands, plant their flag in that soil on this debut and never really leave it. The reaper on the cover, scythe in hand and hood drawn, tells you the register before a note plays: this is doom as ritual horror, Catholic superstition turned into apotropaic riff-craft, and it is filthy in all the ways the tradition demands.
The best of it is very good. “Mountain Devil” is the clear highlight and the track that most justifies the whole enterprise, an earthy, analog-warm slab that sits in the dusty overlap of stoner rock and heavy doom, breaks its own wall open with a psychedelic noise passage, and, crucially, is mastered with enough room to actually breathe. “M.I.M. Mayhem” rides a knurled, present bass through melancholic, synth-shaded space into groove-driven breaks; “Hypnopriest” escapes the loudness war entirely and drops a clean instrumental passage into the middle to great effect; and “Into the Cellar” pairs a raw, live-sounding first half with a dragging, atmospheric outro. When the band lean on their dirty fuzz and their occult chant-and-shout theatrics, the record has a genuine, unforced menace.
The problem is how loud and how flat too much of it has been pushed. Several tracks are mastered hard into the ceiling, and the record’s low mids stack up until the fuzzed guitars and a rumbling, undefined bass smear together and tire the ear. The title track is the worst offender, a brickwalled opener whose oddly poppy, over-edited clean choruses sit unnaturally on top of the murk, and “Taste For Damnation” turns harsh and sibilant in the high mids where it wants to soar. The closer, “The Lost Son of Sylvester Anfang,” is really just a sub-heavy drone-doom sketch, a mood piece rather than a song. For a record that sounds most alive when it is rawest, the compression works directly against its own strengths.
Italian Dark Sound is a characterful, atmospheric, deeply tradition-minded debut with one great song and several good ones, held back by a master that mistakes loudness for weight. The occult-doom murk is partly the point, and fans of the lo-fi Italian horror lineage will forgive a lot of it, but a lighter touch on the limiter would have let the fuzz and the dread hit as hard as the band clearly intend. As a first statement from this particular coven, it is promising, grimy fun, best played loud with the ceiling forgiven.
Raw occult doom in the Italian horror tradition, dirty fuzzed guitars, harsh shouts and occult clean chants, built for menace over polish. The highlight is “Mountain Devil,” an earthy, analog-warm slab in the overlap of stoner and heavy doom that breaks open with a psychedelic noise passage and is mastered with real room to breathe. “M.I.M. Mayhem” rides a knurled present bass through melancholic synth-shaded space into groove breaks, “Hypnopriest” escapes the loudness war and drops a clean instrumental passage mid-song, and “Into the Cellar” pairs a raw live first half with a dragging atmospheric outro. The drag is the mastering: several tracks are pushed hard into the ceiling and the low mids stack until fuzzed guitars and an undefined bass smear together. The title track is the worst, a brickwalled opener with oddly poppy over-edited clean choruses sitting on top of the murk, and “Taste For Damnation” turns harsh and sibilant. The closer is really a sub-heavy drone-doom sketch. Characterful and atmospheric, working best when it is rawest, undercut by a master that mistakes loudness for weight.
Standout tracks: Mountain Devil, M.I.M. Mayhem, Hypnopriest
