Sick, evil, oppressive, bleak and atmospheric are but a few words I might choose to use when describing this Italian band who collectively perform under the banner of Urna. ‘Iter ad Lucem’ is incredibly dark and powerful heavy funeral doom with subtle black metal influences that brings to mind the finest moments of Esoteric, Gris, Skepticism, Nortt and Tyranny.
One of the things that really caught my attention with this band immediately is the mood and just how depressing it all is. It’s interesting how the band shifts from bludgeoning heavy riffs to completely synthesized interludes within the same song and back again. Likewise the music has a sort of progressive quality to it which saves the music from sounding to repetitive, tired or just plain boring. It’s also fascinating the way there are some cleaner sounding guitars which stick out from the heavy distortion and gloom of this record.
The drum work is also just spot on and keeps perfect rhythm with everything which I’d think to be challenging with the music being as slow as it is. Strangely there are even some moments where the drummer uses some fast double bass foot work and the guitars actually speed up a bit too. Lastly the vocals are performed in a fair mixture between low guttural growls and blackened metal screams, which just adds even more diversity to this album.
Of course when it comes to this sort of music it’s all about emotion and Urna is rich with it. As I hinted at it within the opening paragraph, Urna has the ability to inject the listener with misery, horror, wickedness and even the unspeakable.
Thick in ambiance and drenched with heavy punishing malevolence and melancholy, Iter ad Lucem is an incredible funeral doom record that I’d highly recommend to fans of the genre and all of the bands mentioned above.
No comments:
Post a Comment