PER VIAM

Antonio Bartoccetti and Doris Norton started their long artistic partnership at the end of the sixties as Jacula and are still active today as Antonius Rex. Their last album, "Per Viam", was released in 2009 by the independent label Black Widow. It comes out with a nice three folds digipack packaging and a suggestive art cover...

The music every now and again could remind of Goblin or Mike Oldfield and flows away like the soundtrack of a horror movie or a thriller. Actually, tracks like "Micro Demons", "Per Viam", "Spectra" and "Angels & Demons" could be a perfect musical background for the reading of a Dan Brown's novel... Liturgical chants, gothic organ and piano passages are intertwined with modern sounds and distorted guitars... During the video of "Angels & Demons" compares even the word illuminati! You can find it on Youtube, while on the album as extra track CD-ROM VIDEO there's the video of "Micro Demons"...

In "Woman Of The King" there are some Celtic influences that remind me of Alan Stivell's album "The Mist Of Avalon". "UFDEM" is an old piece of Jacula dressed up in modern an more aggressive sounds but the voice of Doris Norton is still charming while the final "Antonius Rex Prophecy" is a long track featuring the recitative vocals of Antonio Bartoccetti and a slow "atmospheric" pace.

On the whole a good album, even if it's not really challenging and, at length, a little bit kitsch. In nomine Christi , amen.