A nice trip to the underworld with no return ticket is perhaps what we really need to exorcise a reality that is paradoxically even darker than the one painted by Malasangre, but which we continue to blithely ignore “pretending to be healthy.” Lux Deerit Soli doesn’t try to sugarcoat it for a moment, with its suffocating blend of funeral and drone to which a clearly black vocal provides an additional lethal element. The slow, almost exasperating pace of the two pachydermic tracks Sa Ta and Na Ma, both lasting more than half an hour, are a real test of endurance for anyone attempting to approach them but, when one comes to the end of listening, the satisfaction one feels is directly proportional to the effort expended. Organically describing a sonic monolith of such magnitude is a complex exercise: as a term of comparison, a comparison with Krief de Soli’s recent Munus Solitudinis, which at certain junctures might appear almost “catchy” by comparison, may prove useful. Malasangre, in fact, strips the funeral material to the bone and, knowingly, avoids resorting to the mournful keyboard interludes that other bands often use to give their compositions a minimum of breathing space, thus achieving a magmatic and annihilating effect at the same time. The Italian band returns with this third full length a full seven years after the previous one, offering us a work of enormous value as well as a rare example of artistic integrity and, why not, courage in proposing music that, inevitably, will always and in any case be the preserve of a limited number of people endowed with particular sensitivity. Lux Deerit Soli is a sonic experience that anyone who likes to immerse themselves in dark atmospheres pervaded by genuine suffering should tackle without delay.

2012 – I, Voidhanger Records