Beats and yelling: Feralia

Ultima RequiesOut 26th June on ATMF The third album from this Italian outfit relives the streaming lamentations of the Blazebirth Hall scene, but populates this infamously barren Russian style with stark features by which to navigate. Most obviously via rhythmic variation and clearly marked out phrasing, over and above the addition of rich keyboard decoration which often pivots to organ, lending the music a grandiose gothic flair alongside the fragility of acoustic guitars. In one sense then, Feralia seem to be tempering the flamboyance of symphonic black metal with the minimal wing of the genre. The austerity of sparse black metal receives an emotional and thematic upgrade, whilst the genre’s more eccentric tendencies are dulled somewhat, any rampant theatrical impulses sobered up into a more demure beast. The result is a finely balanced work of stylistic variety and conceptual unity. The production has a suppressed, murky quality to it. Utterly dominated by the guitars, the richly…