FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE

Stylistically the material on "Agony" is a continuation of the symphonic technical death metal sound of the two preceding releases. The death metal part of the music is pretty brutal, highly energetic, and technically well played, predominantly featuring deep growling vocals, but also occassional high pitched (semi-operatic) male clean vocal parts performed by bassist Paolo Rossi. Soprano Veronica Bordacchini performs vocals on "Temptation" and "The Egoism". There are strong neo-classical leanings in the lead guitar work, but it´s the dominant classical orchestral parts which define the music. It´s obvious from the arrangements that at least one of the guys in the band is a classically trained musician/composer.

The high level musicianship is definitely one of the great assets of the music, and it´s hard not to be impressed by the speed and dexterity of the performances. The drumming is fast-paced and blasting and drive the music forward with a great energy, and the guitars/bass follow suit. The orchestral parts provide an epic atmosphere to the death metal basis of the music, and that´s where the band shine. To my ears the death metal basis is solid, but it´s not extraordinary, and that´s because there aren´t that many killer riffs in the music. Most riffs on the album are brutal fast-paced tremolo picking and more or less just there to support the orchestral parts and bring brutality, and only few stand out. A couple of more memorable riffs could have elevated the music to a higher level. The growling vocals are also slightly one-dimensional in style, and although neither the guitar riffs nor the vocals are major issues, both parts of the music should be mentioned as features with room for improvement.

When that is said the lead guitar work is on a high level and the orchestral parts are well composed and suit the music well, and as "Agony" also features a powerful and detailed sounding production, it´s ultimately a high quality release. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)

Secondly, the production strongly favors the drums. No doubt that session drummer Mauro Mercurio's performance here is impressive. But being mixed front and center, it totally muddles out the finer contours and textures of the riffs making very difficult and, at times, even impossible to really appreciate what the guitars are doing. And when it comes to technical death metal, this an essential component of the listening experience.

With all that said, this is still an overall enjoyable record for fans of the genre. The playing is tight, the lyrics are effective, the brutality is immersive, and the symphonic sections are, when taken by themselves, enjoyable.

But yet again they are producing music which is unlike many others in the scene, which is really surprising given the line-up moves, and here they are again using real orchestral ensembles - a full string quartet, a classical percussionist, and a baroque choir - and guest musicians in the shape of Maurizio Cardullo (Folkstone) and Daniele Marinelli playing uilleann pipes and mandolin. They move between the Wagnerian Beethoven grandiosity which involves all elements into those which are more like symphonic death with orchestral support. Fleshgod Apocalypse are continuing to break musical boundaries and create something which is very special indeed. There is an easy commerciality within the songs, melodies which belie the brutality, and a fragility which is bolstered by something very concrete indeed. The band say this is their best release to date, and they just may be right.

One can imagine Beethoven rising up and shouting 'This is what I wanted the 9th to be like!'. But while the music is always incredibly heavy, massively over the top, there are also plenty of nuances which both lift the overall sound and also make the metal sound even more brutal. The use of two singers is incredibly important, as while Riccardi is often the main lead, Rossi's more clean approach reminds one of classic Dimmu Borgir. In many ways that is the band they have most in common with, although both are approaching their versions of metal in different ways. Over the top, intense, majestic this is insanity yet within the maelstrom there is control which allows it all to make sense, somehow. In many ways this is a full-blown progressive album, pushing musical boundaries and refusing to accept any given norms.

I am not sure what a pure classicist would think of this, probably wouldn't be repeatable, but for someone coming into this from the progressive and metal side I can only say this is superb.

While VENENO follows suit, what's instantly noticeable is how the orchestral parts have been tamped down a few notches and take a backseat to the fiery metal fury as heard on the opening "Fury" which completely eschews the long-winded orchestral classical build ups and just gets down to business with heavy crunchy death metal guitar riffs pummeling along at breakneck speed. In fact this is the album that emphasizes the orchestral parts the least of FLESHGOD's decade long string of albums as they don't really become a major tour de force until the fifth track "The Praying Mantis' Strategy" which is a short intermission and respite from the distortion fueled metal that dominated the soundscapes prior with only faint background traces. The symphonic elements carry over to "Worship And Forget" and then slowly retreat to the backdrop again however careful listening reveals that these classical elements are always lurking in the background and the main impetus for constructing the melodic flow, it's just that on VENENO they are suffocated by the pummeling death metal aspects which gives this album a different feel than its predecessors.

Another aspect that differentiates VENENO from the past is that album hosts a couple of guest musicians with Veronica Bordacchini on vocals and newbie Fabio Bartoletti on more guitars with Francesco Ferrini handling piano and orchestrations, newbie Paoli on vocals, guitars and drums and Paolo Rossi on bass and the sporadic clean vocals that pop up. Once again FLESHGOD creates an album that is graced with the perfect production job that allows the beautiful clean aspects to reverberate perfectly with the filthy raw bombast of the death metal that doesn't sound too polished. Perhaps it comes off as a little muddy at times, especially in the opening tracks but i think that's what the band was going for this time around. A full string quartet, a classical percussionist and a Baroque choir provide the symphonic touches and once again seamlessly meld with the death metal. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the album is the closest thing to a ballad the band has ever created in the form of "Pissing On The Score" which starts off as an opera with Veronica Bordacchini's diva tenor vocal talents taking the lead and then turns into a beauty and the beast duet. The track sounds more like something from Phantom of the Opera and never integrates the death metal. Hmmm? could these be a new phase? If so i don't like it but it's not bad as a one off for contrast.

All in all, VENENO is yet another exciting chapter in the FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE universe that continues the band's now rather infamous mashup of death metal and classical elements and tweaks them into a slightly different sounding album. VENENO is by no means going to win over any fans who have already fled the growly vocal fueled bombast of the death metal paradigm but neither will it offend those who have already signed up for the fan club. VENENO delivers all the expected goods and despite a feeling of the recycled riffs and overall feel of been there done that, VENENO cranks out enough spontaneity to keep my interest while retreading the rather lonely niche of performing extreme bombastic death metal with a full symphonic orchestra integrated. The performances on VENENO are top notch and although the ballad is the one track i could live without, the album is chock full of beautiful melodies and ugly brutality all swirled together like a copulating yin yang sign at the circus and for me that's good enough. While the actual album ends with the Chopin inspired title track which is mostly a piano workout, some albums include two bonus tracks including the Rammsteain cover of "Reise Reise" which is quite an interesting take on the German industrial band's 2004 song from the album of the same name. VENENO is yet another great album from FLESHGOD!

While the lyrics take the album into the conceptual realms of the progressive and esoteric, the music is still firmly grounded in the symphonic death metal hybridization that the band has been tweaking and refining incrementally with each subsequent album. While the general differences usually lie in the ratio of extreme metal to symphonic elements, i would have to say that KING doesn't delve too much further in the symphonic orchestral direction which the previous album "Labyrinth" suggested and actually stays within the parameters that that album set. While this balance is maintained between the two genres it is quite differently melded together in different ways.

We get a cool intro with "Marche Royale" that regally sets the pace of a grandness to come. After the initial ceremonial act of a full-orchestrated death march begins, the band wastes no time getting to business utilizing an energetic thrash metal riffing approach that reminds me of Metallica at their late 80s prime and also conjures up all the possibilities that band could have evolved after their mediocre "S&M" experiment that i always found lackluster. It is clear by the way the intro melds into "In Aeternum" that Francesco Paoli's musical composition skills have grown in prowess and the symphonic classical elements are no longer subordinate to the death metal and both elements have not only gained equal musical powers but the two dance together like a blackened ballerina of death on a razor's edge of the threnodies of the throne.

The progressiveness of this album is quite impressive as it sounds like they have adopted the best aspects of an Enslaved album with the alternating dueling of the death metal and clean vocals all the while allowing the diva dynamics of soprano Veronica Bordacchini to dominate the soundscape at times which leads me to the one stark surprise of the album which comes at track number seven "Paramour (Die Leidenschaft Bringt Leiden") which lyrically is lifted from Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. On this track our diva steals the show and does a solo performance with only an accompanying piano. While well performed, this was the direction i feared this album to be heading and despite this being the only bugaboo about this album, it doesn't last long and probably tries to advertise the fact that this album is also released as a double discker in digi-pak with a second CD that contains the album in an all orchestral version. I have opted to pass on this because if i want to hear pure classical music i'll stick to the classics.

With a nice balance between thrash, death and progressive metal all woven around seductive symphonic classical grooves, i find KING to be yet another excellent album in the quality over quantity world of FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE where each passing album only expands its tentacles into more intricacies of fine tuning what the band already excels in. Similar to their other albums, the tracks flow together seamlessly creating a nearly full hour listening experience delivering excellent musicianship and stellar production and mixing of two opposing musical forces. It's like making a painting with oil and water and somehow manipulating them at an atomic level to make them dance together like the hippo from "Fantasia" with tattooed skateboard punk dude in the mosh pit. An acquired taste perhaps but if you've built this type of musical hybrid into your palette of eclecticness than KING will not disappoint.

What is the same is their usual formula of taking ample amounts of extreme metal, most notably in the death metal department which includes the grim, guttural and growly vocals of Tommaso Riccardi, the down tuned brutal guitar and bass assaults and the frenetic technical wizardry of Francesco Paoli's extraordinary brutal and beastly drumming performances. Like "Agony" where the band stepped up the classical orchestral aspects, LABYRINTH carries that torch even further by extending the role of the symphonics. And once again the tracks all flow together seamlessly as to give a simple album feel broken into many acts or parts rather than completely detached pieces of music. 
What's different on this album is how much more the band has expanded their sound and songwriting. In the beginning the symphonic aspects were tamped down by the death metal and by "Agony" finally found their equal footing but on LABYRINTH they are allowed a lot more room to breath, expand and dominate. The scales are certainly more tipped in this direction as the death metal beast although not having been even close to retired has at least taken a back seat for significant portions of the album. We simply get more completely classical parts that not only make up intros and outros but grace transitioning sections within tracks as well as vying with the metal parts in every part of the album. There are also more uses of Paolo Rossi's clean vocals as well as the operatic diva enchantress duties of Veronica Bordacchini who has free reign at times while other times being part of the beauty and beast team where all three vocalists are harmonizing together.

This is the most diverse album by FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE yet. The arrangements are much more complex and both the classical and metal characteristics have expanded their tentacles into new arenas. The classical not only includes more operatic moments but incorporates expanded Chopin-esque piano and for the first time has acoustic classical guitar as well as the usual neoclassical soloing. On the metal side there are different types of riffs that emerge now and again. There are moments of thrash, industrial and traditional metal in the mix that don't replace the dominate death metal but merely augment. And the way all these instrumental roles mix together sounds fresh and unlike previous albums as well.

At this point, the increase in symphonic involvement does bring bands like Septicflesh to mind however FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE remains more extreme and complex than their Greek cousins and often brings the Canadian Unexpect to mind in its frenetic and unforgiving fusion but once again doesn't quite throw down the extreme avant-garde gauntlet like that band has. The sound stays within the parameters of the sonic collaborative frenzy of classical music with death metal and only mildly extends those boundaries. This is another brilliant album by FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE and i only prefer this one slightly less to "Agony" simply because in the balancing act of symphonic vs. metal i feel they went a little overboard with the symphonic aspects but it is simply a matter of taste and only a minor quiver since the compositions overall exude a more sophisticated approach hinting at the fact that FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE are continuously evolving their sound and haven't yet unleashed the best that the beast has to offer.

On the very first track "Temptation" we get a dark and sombre taste of a Berlioz sounding "Symphonie Fantastique" with a haunted diva ushering in undulating rhythms that ratchet up the intensity that ultimately summon the metallic beast of the underworld allowing the cacophonous raucousness we call death metal to join the party and bombard us with the monstrous technical drumming of Francesco Ferrini doing his best to rip the classical aspects to shreds. Accordingly he is joined in by the insanely down tuned guitar dual guitar assaults and bass madness, however on AGONY unlike the previous two releases, the classical music has regained its power and now is in full control never letting itself to be diminished to second best. The result is nothing less of outstanding as neither the death metal aspects nor the classical aspects of the music compromise their integral physiognomy in the least bit making this one of the most triumphing releases of this sort of symphonic extreme metal.

I'm serious when i say don't think for one minute that the extremely brutal death metal aspects have been compromised by letting the orchestral elements shine through. Somehow FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE pulls this off with grace. While the majority of the album is highly aggressive on the death metal side with Tommaso Riccardi bantering out the most guttural and growly of death metal vocals alongside some of the best technical drumming skills in the musical world that serves as an anchor to the metal side even at the album's most mellow moments, there are plenty of passages where a more melodic contemplative side are allowed to reign such as on "The Deceit" where Riccardi trades off with bassist Paolo Rossi's clean vocal contributions. In addition there are many more pure symphonic non-metal moments that not only serve as bridges between the ten tracks that seamlessly run together but when the two genre styles are in full swing always is heard as an equal not being subjugated to second class. If that wasn't enough Cristiano Trionfera somehow fits neoclassical power metal guitar solos into the intact death metal sound.

Upon first listen i was a little disappointed as i felt the symphonic aspects dominated a little too much on this one in comparison with the previous two but after a few listens this prejudice literally disintegrated and the beauty of the balancing act between the two styles and the awesomeness of the arrangements and song structures sunk in. Once again, the classical music is the very fabric of the song structures and GODFLESH APOCALYPSE proves here that they are all classically trained musicians who are just a wee bit more caffeinated than the average Yo-Yo Ma's of the world! This is music that you can truly feel so old-worldly cultured in the mosh pit. You can feel like a hoity-toity bigwig for a nanosecond only to be shattered by extremely brutal and frenetic sonic attacks. The album remains really brutal but on "The Forsaking" a classical piano run is the dominant force having wrested control of the death metal and walks it on a leash but on "The Oppression" death chews that leash off and furiously regains its foothold. After all actors in this sonic cockfight are exhausted and call it a day, the finale "Agony" ends the highly energetic fusion affair with a nice Chopin inspired classical piano piece that instills a melancholic dread that leaves the listener feeling like tangled dude on the cover art devoid of hope, light and promise of resolution. Wickedly cool stuff! 4.5 round up!

MAFIA is a sonic assault from every standpoint. This is ugly, brutal, cold and an utter onslaught on the senses. The pace is absolutely relentless as the breakneck speed only gives the listener sporadic yet brief respites from the barbarous breakneck pace of the distortionfest. While this is certainly some of the most brutal death metal the planet has to offer, what makes this ever so addictive is that the song structure is so infused with classical music textures that only occasional bubble up from the underworld just long enough as to remind the listener that there is indeed an underlying melodic approach to the madness.

While this album is fairly close to the debut there are some efforts to diversify the songwriting which also includes a final track that is totally written on the piano bringing a Chopin-esque melancholy to conclude a contemplative anecdote to the baleful barrage of the senses. While the classical bubblings are scarce at this point in the band's discography there are a few key points like in "Conspiracy Of Silence" where they emerge to dominate for a brief period to tame the savage beast.

Between the excellent production that updates the death metal sound without sterilizing it and the outstanding musicianship of this phenomenal band that brutally assault the senses at the speed of light while maintaining an impeccable ability to balance the robotic with the progressive subtleties, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE simply sonically bedazzles and delivers in the most unconventional ways of incorporating melodic anchorage in a seemingly cacophonous din of sonic torture. Not only am i impressed by this madness but i always find my protruding appendages banging and often destroying all objects in my vicinity simultaneously when this repulsive raucousness seriously blastbeats my reality.

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE debuted in 2009 with ORACLES and brings these two genres neck in neck and in all honesty the brutal death metal wins out. Mixing such such extreme genres is nothing new of course. Rhapsody, Angra, Therion and probably their closest cousin Septicflesh all started mixing classical music around extreme metal elements but i would have to vote FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE as being the most EXTREME of the lot with the most unrelenting brutality incorporating all the usual suspects death metal has to offer such as the growly guttural vocals, the highly distorted breakneck speed guitar and bass riffing and the blastbeat a million beats per second drumming. The music is technical to be sure but it is more mechanical and focused on just pounding the bleep out of your eardrums.

Yeah, this is tech death metal. Cold, sterile, brutal, designed to wake the dead. While it may seem this is a death match of classical vs. death metal, the fact is that the classical for the most part is simply entwined in the very fabric of the songs themselves. They seem to be written firstly as classical music and then the classical is dropped and layered upon with brutal death metal which is a clear contrast to bands likes Septicflesh tha t merely seem to symphonically embellish extreme metal. ORACLES isn't gonna convert classical music aficionados to brutal death metal lovers or vice versa but it will certainly appeal to those who love both genres and can appreciate the audacity of layering different genres together in a creative way. Think of it as extreme mashups and you'll get the picture! This is a confident and well-produced debut that shows that Italian music isn't all about romanticism and pastoral prog, they can also take the most melodic music and turn it into the most extreme headache music that would put second wave of black metal to shame.