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Liquido di Morte is a psychedelic/space rock band from Milan, Italy that has been around since 2014. Their third album entitled "||||" was released in October of 2019. The band line up is made up of individuals who only identify by letters from the alphabet; FC (synthesizers), F (guitar), C (guitar), Z (bass) and S (drums). The album is available on digital download, CD and LP which apparently has 300 different covers. There are a total of 5 tracks with a total run-time of just over 40 minutes.

Starting with a keyboard drone, "Uomo Fa Cibo" (6:46) soon gets moving along when the bass and drums kick in and then the guitars start to establish a chiming and strumming group of layers. The synths also start to create some improvisation, and then the track sails along with it's moderate beat and nicely layered sound. As it moves along, not much changes except for a slowly, increasing intensity to the end. "Strateron 2323" (4:49) starts with a robot voice and then the full band comes in with a faster beat and the synth leading the way following a motif, and a wall of guitars behind it. The guitars get heavier and darker and pretty much drown out the synth as they play a repetitive riff and the drums pound their way to the end. Not a whole lot of substance in this track.

"Tramonto Nucleare" (8:57) starts with a buzzing low drone while chiming guitars announce the drums and bass coming in and the music starts chugging its way forward, like a train picking up speed. The synth weaves its way around the foundation as it picks up tempo. Just before 4 minutes, all of the layers and foundation stops leaving us suspended. Then a slow moving beat begins and dark guitars strum their way along. The synth comes in later and creates another layer to the music that now chugs along slow. Guitars get a lot heavier after 6 minutes, but the overall sound remains the same.

"Rebus (6, 5)" (13:40) starts off slowly with echoing guitar chords and a low growling bass or synth sound like a dinosaur moaning. The synth drones along with harsh guitar sounds giving everything a metallic sound. Intensity builds slowly as a fuzzy drone threatens to take everything over. All the while, there are no drums or percussion, just slow moving layers. All of this gets swept away at 7 minutes, and the music quiets to a more interesting guitar line, but things remain ominous and slow. Finally, you start hearing signs of percussion developing, pushing the music forward and a surprisingly bright synth comes in. The tempo picks up a bit, and repetitive motifs build upon each other, but the percussion still remains a bit subdued through it all and it all intensifies very slowly. Through all of this time, nothing much interesting happens as this post rock sound continues. There isn't even that much to bliss out to as it is all more reminiscent of formulaic post rock than it is real space rock.

"The Fattening" (6:14) ends the album. It starts off with tapping drums and cymbals, then a low and dark bass comes in followed by strummed guitar chords and low synth. The sound seems to go for a native American feel with the repetitive modal bass and drum line, the music again moves along slowly with sustained notes from the synth lying on top of everything. Not much else happens on this track.

So, what you have here is an album that lies somewhere between post-rock and droning, trance rock that really doesn't develop or change much through each individual track. There really isn't anything very interesting about it all as each song churns along and it is all based around simply intensifying basic motifs made by guitars and synths. There just isn't a lot here to hold your interest, and it even isn't appealing for meditation or blessing out as the music is dark and really offers nothing there that you can "slip" into. If you like your post rock predictable and uneventful, then you might be interested, but its hard to see where this would be very appealing to many people.

|||| is a solid, spacey post-rock album by Liquido di Morte, a band I would never have heard of had TCat not reviewed it on progarchives.

The opening and closing tracks are like a pair of sludgy, trudgy bookends. In the opener, "Uomo Fa Cibo" (Italian for "Man Makes Food"), the bass and drumkit labor to move forward against a near-static sheet of guitar and synth that stand there like a video on super-slo-mo. The sonic elements eventually dissolve into a homogeneity which ends unceremoniously. At the other terminus is "The Fattening." There was a "reddit battle" by this name in 2015, but I think this title could just as easily refer to the song's thickness. Anyway, "The Fattening" almost serves as a coda to "Rebus (6, 5)," so much does it resemble that number in most respects. One point of difference between the penultimate and final tracks, though, is tempo. "The Fattening" starts slowly, with relatively little rhythm, but eventually, overlapping in-tempo synth and guitar patterns establish a hypnotic repetition. The sonic elements eventually dissolve into a homogeneity which ends unceremoniously. Or did I say that already? Translated into English, the band's name means "Death Liquid" or possibly "Liquid of Death," but the opening and closing tracks suggest a very viscous liquid, if not a thick syrup.

Other songs are a bit more peppy. Take "Tramonto Nucleare" ( "Nuclear Sunset," though I'm not sure what that means; there's nothing particularly nuclear about the track, although there is an appreciable ritardando and an extended fade - - perhaps that's the sunset?) as an example. After a one-minute intro, a nice drums-and-guitar rhythm settles in, and it sounds like the backing track to a Billy Idol song, even after a synth arpeggio appears. But around 3:30, the rhythm changes, then stops, and it's back to sludge territory. Over its last minute, "Tramonto Nucleare" disintegrates, and the last twenty-five seconds are near-silence. And then there's "Rebus (6, 5)," which accounts for just about precisely one third of the album's runtime. It builds slowly, with a nice analog-sounding synth over a semi-martial drumbeat, beginning around 8:30; eventually a distorted (and distorting) guitar overtakes the soundscape, although the rhythm continues. Interestingly, in the last half-minute, the song returns, just briefly, to the state it occupied at 8:30, then disintegrates.

My favorite tune here, and another one whose name I don't understand, is "Strateron 2323." It evolves over its first minute into a hypnotic and insistent reiteration, spiraling, but not out of control. Reminds me of a whirlpool or a liquid being stirred violently - - a liquido di morte, perhaps? Anyway, it's a great song; I was playing it on repeat earlier and thinking that maybe this song, and not "Rebus (6, 5)," should've been the thirteen-minute centerpiece of the album.

I'm not sure how to classify |||| within progressive music - - psychedelic, post-rock, or maybe some other. Whatever it is, it's not my favorite prog subgenre. But for some reason I enjoy in particular the first half of the album. And "Strateron 2323" is absolutely fantastic. Three stars for a good album, regardless of classification.