First Funeral is the debut work of Aphonic Threnody, a band founded in 2012 by Riccardo Veronese (English musician, despite his clear Italian origins) and Roberto Mura (he instead 100% Italian, former vocalist in Urna and Arcana Coelestia), who already team up in Dea Marica, a death doom band with two good full lengths to their credit. The shift toward sonorities of a matrix closer to funeral comes with the creation of a first-rate line-up featuring Marco Z., another Italian and musical engine of Urna, on drums, and keyboardist Kostas Panagiotou of the well-known Pantheist, as well as Hungarian cellist Ábel Libisch. In short, a fine jumble of nationalities and prominent personalities from which a delicious fruit can only be born: First Funeral is a full-bodied ep, with four tracks touching ten minutes in length each, which then in the version curated by Avantgarde Music are supplemented by a cover of the historic track Symphonaire Infernus et Spera Empyrium by early My Dying Bride. Although, as we have learned, there would be no need for it, this detail has led many to yet another parallelism of a band with the Halifax masters, which in this specific case may also fit while turning out to be equally reductive and simplistic: Aphonic Threnody‘s sound is much more melodic than decadent, and Mura’s vocal interpretation, Veronese’s guitar approach, and Panagiotou’s keyboard work bring the whole thing to another plane.
2013 – Terror From Hell Records / Avantgarde Music
Mournful Sounds 
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