Valery 2012
Things Can Turn Ugly
A pessimistic missive from Italy with a glaze of gloom and not a glint of glimmer.
“I have no face, I am nobody”, runs “Fair And Bright” against its own title, and that’s about sums up the Bologna band’s morbid stance. It’s basically wrong when metal becomes more indebted to the electronica-smeared buzz of NEW ORDER than animalistic riffage of BLACK SABBATH, this shoegazing shift sucking all life from the instrumental poise of “Things Can Turn Ugly”, save for the genres elegant mesh in the rage of “The Chant Parade”.
Such an approach sounds teasing in opener “Sore”, yet the boredom sets in soon enough, once it dawns on one that desperation and depression reign here, although “Blank” is full of glacial hooks and there’s a nice undercurrent to the dry guitar wall of “Hype”. So when “This Will Lead To An End” tightens the tension and dissipates, relief comes down. In its niche, the album fares good, but in the outside world… the band don’t dare to venture there musically.
**1/2
