The mere idea of using the term supergroup in our metal scene makes me smile enough, since in the past such an appellative was associated with operations that involved musicians belonging to bands that were already quite famous and that, often, were a way like any other to make money, even if not infrequently they also resulted in works of considerable thickness. That being said, and given that the purely commercial purposes are excluded from the genre itself staged by Formalist, being in the presence of an Italian band that brings together members of Forgotten Tomb, Malasangre and Viscera ///, for those who know these three bands is mainly the guarantee to listen to intense, corrosive and unconventional music. What immediately jumps to attention from the first notes is the evident and not so obvious amalgam of the sound contribution brought by the different personalities present: so, if Ferdinando Marchisio’s voice has the inevitable imprint of his Forgotten Tomb on the plate, the sonic storm enacted by Michele Basso’s guitar and by the rhythmic base of the couple Nicola Casella / Riccardo Rossi appears a perfect synthesis of the sound that Viscera /// and Malasangre have given us (in the latter case in less recent times, since their last album dates back to 2012). No One Will Shine Anymore presents three long tracks, among which the opener Arson appears slightly more catchy, showing the moments more similar to the last Forgotten Tomb, but in general post metal, sludge, ambient drone and black metal are magnificently synthesized by the quartet, that doesn’t forget to offer to the whole a melodic idea exalted in the wonderful Mainlined, a track in which sludge doom dissonances alternate to more painful and evocative passages. In the middle we find the longest and most disturbed Foul, in the initial part of which try to make room for the threatening tones of matrix Malasangre that are then relatively diluted by the restless post atmospheres of Viscera ///. Obviously this description should not make you think of a sort of collage of the various components, which as mentioned in reality merge and intertwine and, at more than one juncture, become something that goes far beyond an ideal sum of addendums, taking on the appearance of a personal sound to which you can attribute without any hesitation the brand Formalist. I conclude with a wish, regarding the opportunity to repeat more frequently operations of this kind, because it is precisely in the osmosis between musicians from different bands and genres that the possibility of strengthening and growing a scene that normally does not shine for unity of purpose is realized.

2018 – Third I Rex