Band from the uncertain geographical location, given the different nationalities and residences of the musicians involved, Nangilima debut with an album of death doom rather compelling. In fact, a considerable melodic propensity pervades the entire work in which, however, are often the keyboards to stand as protagonists more than they do more predictably the guitars. The peculiarity of the album lies mainly in this dichotomy between the leaden doom in its most extreme guise and the almost progressive features of the keyboard parts, for once more protagonists than the usual task of emphasizing the drama of the sound. It must be said that the genesis of the band was quite laborious: started as a duo in Malmö, after the publication of the single Thanathos the composer and multi-instrumentalist C.L. abandoned his creature in the hands of the vocalist Emilio Crespo, resident in Sweden but of spanish origins; these, decided to continue the adventure, called to collaborate with him before the other two iberian musicians Khalvst Ov Mhurn and Amarok and, after the exit of this last one, the bulgarian musician Nikolay Velev. Finally found a stable line-up, Nangilima, without many proclamations or particular expectations, place a really successful debut that, thanks to songs with that painful melody that fans of the genre like, arrives at its end without ever having shown the rope. Apart from intros and outros, the four main tracks are equally convincing, even if Crimson Shroud stands out from the rest of the tracklist for its greater evocative potential. The music almost never takes on excessively funereal traits, if we make an exception for the first half of The Link Of Reminiscence: in fact, the death doom of the trio focuses much more on melody than on impact, even if a growl like Emilio Crespo’s, which does not disfigure at all even in front of the greatest exponents of this vocal style, exacerbates the scores put in place by his companions. The title track deserves a mention because the very particular use of keyboards brings the sound to unexpected progressive shores, without distorting the doom matrix: this song shows that pleasant peculiarity that sometimes is a fault to those who engage with the genre, The Dark Matter turns out to be, finally, a really successful first work, which perhaps still lacks a little something to attest to the highest levels of the death doom scene, but the road to get there seems neither too long nor particularly difficult for the good and (at least for me) surprising Nangilima.

2014 – Xtreem Music