Day: April 11, 2015

Tiresia Raptus are a project (or better setting, as they prefer to call themselves), born from the fertile underground Roman scene, whose main engine is Carlo Gagliardi, assisted by the best known, at least in the metal field, Nicola Rossi, vocalist of Doomraiser. Both for the topics covered and for the musical expression, Diaspora is an album that caters to a circle of public not necessarily devoted to a genre rather than another, in fact, the esoteric material marries with a style of not easy to define and, if in the instrumental parts is predominant the dark ambient component, in the songs sung by Rossi everything moves broadly towards a refined and versatile occult rock. The latter could be the element able to approach the listening, at first, particularly the fans of doom, although it should be clear that the interpretation of the Roman vocalist here is completely stripped of the animalistic charge exhibited with the first Doomraiser, favoring instead an evocative nature that completes the evolution making it, by far, one of the best interpreters of our entire music scene. The deep texts, which in the passages recited are the prerogative of the same Gagliardi, are an essential part for the understanding and enjoyment of the entire work, marrying perfectly with a musical fabric now enveloping, now disturbing traits, while escaping the sterile brainlessness of certain expressions of experimental mold. The beauty of Diaspora lies in its perfect combination of a cultured proposal (but light years away from certain intellectual snobbery) with a song form certainly not “easy listening”, but equally capable of offering songs that can remain well impressed in the memory, such as the opener Do You Know Who You Are and, above all, the masterpiece Skeleton, emblem from the lyrical point of view of the entire work, with its vocal references to the best Italian rock of the 80s set in a musical jewel of rare depth in which Nicola Rossi shows off a test of memorable intensity. The same Fragile Bones is an obsessive song with psychedelic traits in which the musicians (not to be forgotten for any reason the other three protagonists, Nico Irace, Francesco Campus and Giancarlo Lustri) provide another test capital “forcing” Rossi to invent a melodic vocal line on a sound carpet at times dissonant. The experimental psychedelic prog of the title track closes a superb work, which could satisfy those who are constantly looking for deep music, out of the box and able to excite and make you think at the same time. We can only hope that Diaspora does not pass in silence or that it remains confined to a limited number of admirers, precisely because it is not addressed to a specific circle of fans: here we are on levels of absolute excellence, without forgetting that the work of Tiresia Raptus must necessarily be evaluated in a much broader scope than purely musical.

2015 – Bloodrock Records