Day: January 7, 2016

Let’s get it out of the way: to those who will object that Motus Tenebrae resemble in a marked way Paradise Lost, we can only answer affirmatively. That said, and put a tombstone over any desire or search for originality, what remains of this Deathrising, the fifth long-distance effort of the band from Pisa, is neither little nor negligible. The 11 tracks that make up the tracklist of the album will surely make the joy of those who love this type of sound and, of course, stravede also for the latest releases of the award-winning company Mackintosh / Holmes. I repeat my thought: originality, if it is not accompanied by a good writing, remains a brave exercise of style but an end in itself, while, on the contrary, even a work strongly influenced by what has been done by others in the past (as long as it does not expire in mere plagiarism) can be absolutely effective if composed and played by adequately inspired musicians. And this is the case of Deathrising, where gothic doom is expressed at optimal levels by an expert and competent band, with some not indifferent peaks reached in the tracks characterized by more pronounced melodic lines, while the songs characterized by heavier riffs are a bit less compelling: an exception in this sense is a magnificent episode like Light That We Are, which transports us to the era of Icon, without even disfiguring in comparison. It’s clear, however, that the melancholic opener Our Weakness and Black Sun, a sort of modern-day Forever Failure, open as best they could a work undoubtedly beautiful, which sees at least another pearl as Haunt Me, without forgetting the extremely dark setting of the title track and a For A Change that shows a release from the influences of Losti to land on the territories of the most aggressive Novembers Doom. Moreover, the voice of Luis McFadden, founder of Motus Tenebrae together with guitarist Andreas Das Cox, and back in the lineup after a few years of absence, ends up further accentuating the affinity with the masters of Halifax for his intonation contiguous to that of Nick Holmes, but the Tuscan vocalist, on this occasion, provides a test even more convincing than that done on The Dark Days of Disbeliever, as in my opinion more at ease with the more robust sounds of Deathrising. It’s in the nature of things that seminal artists create a flock of followers, some good and prepared, others less so: Motus Tenebrae certainly belong to the first of these categories, from the high of an experience of more than ten years that undoubtedly lies in their favor, since we are not talking about a bunch of kids electrocuted from one day to another on the road to Damascus. If you allow me the parallelism, Motus Tenebrae are to Paradise Lost as NFD are to Fields Of The Nephilim: I think that even Peter White himself has never denied (also because of the presence of former FOTN in the line-up) to draw from the immense musical heritage left by McCoy’s band, but despite this Waking The Dead has been rightly considered one of the best albums released last year in the gothic metal field, one more reason to keep the same standard of judgment than what Motus Tenebrae offered us with Deathrising.

2016 – My Kingdom Music