Menu
195 metal CDs
  • Home
  • About
  • Full list of CDs
  • Genres
  • Scores
195 metal CDs

Opera IX—1998—Sacro Culto

Posted on Monday 4 August 2014Thursday 4 July 2019
Opera IX—1998—Sacro Culto
Opera IX—1998—Sacro Culto

Details

Recorded at Cap. Woofer Studios in autumn 1997. Produced by Opera IX and Stefano Tappari. Mastered by Elettroformati S.R.L.

www.operaix.it

Band

  • Cadaveria—Vocals
  • Ossian—Guitars
  • Lunaris—Keyboards
  • Vlad—Bass
  • Flegias—Drums

Tracks

  1. The oak
  2. Fronds of the ancient walnut
  3. The naked and the dance
  4. Cimmeries
  5. My devotion
  6. Under the sign of the red dragon

Review

So, to Opera IX‘s second full-length album and my second exposure to them.

The production is significantly better on this compared with The Call of the Wood (1995), the jangling bag of spanners has been replaced with a proper drum kit, and the rest of the instruments sound more present (rather than recorded at the other end of the hall).

The album starts with (female) vocalist Cadaveria barking the opening lyrics “In the whirls of time…”, followed by the kind of doom-like, dirge that wouldn’t have gone amiss on an early Paradise Lost album. Which pretty much sets the tone for the album as a whole: it’s a blend of black metal meets gothic.

As its predecessor, this album contains long, long songs: 10:40, 12:25, 8:20, 12:42. 14:59, and 11:18. That’s six songs in a little over 70 minutes.

The second track, which has the most splendidly bonkers title of “Fronds of the ancient walnut”, more than certainly draws on influence from Swiss avant-garde black metal pioneers Celtic Frost.

“The naked and the dance” is part folk metal, part a full-on thrashtastic, black metal wall of sound. I quite like it. It’s different.

“Cimmeries” (whatever they are) starts with a slow doom-like riff, part Paradise Lost/part-Celtic Frost. Of course the whole song lasts over 12 minutes so it doesn’t stay like that for long. More twisting and turning black metal riffs overlaid with shouting.

“My devotion” again opens slowly, with an atmospheric keyboard sound, bells and haunting (“aahhhh”) vocals, acoustic guitar and clean bass. It too soon melds into a doom-like dirge.

Guess how the last track starts. Slow and quiet? You got it. Bass guitar this time, overlaid with a passionate guitar solo. The doom-like dirge isn’t far behind.

Conclusion

Overall this isn’t a bad album. It’s definitely a leap ahead of its predecessor. The production is better, the song writing is better, and Opera IX appears to have moved in the three years from melodic black metal more towards a fusion of black metal, gothic and doom which fits their sound well.

My main criticism, I think, is that the songs are simply too long. They often begin with an interesting music theme that might be fun to explore and adapt throughout a five or six minute track, but these songs often go on for twice that length. By the end of the song I’ve forgotten how it began, and it appears to be a million miles from there anyway.

Black metal’s not really my bag, but this album has some interesting moments.

Review score: 67%

Video

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvTy7o5AN0]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Genres

  • About the project (4)
  • Heavy metal (214)
    • Alternative (11)
    • Ambient (3)
    • Avant-garde (8)
    • Black (38)
    • Crossover (2)
    • Death (50)
    • Doom (18)
    • Drone (5)
    • Experimental (14)
    • Folk (7)
    • Gothic (7)
    • Grindcore (15)
    • Groove (9)
    • Industrial (11)
    • Instrumental (5)
    • Metalcore (12)
    • Power metal (5)
    • Progressive (32)
    • Ragga (2)
    • Sludge (15)
    • Speed metal (2)
    • Thrash (26)
  • Punk (15)
  • Rock (40)
    • Blues (2)
    • Depressive (1)
    • Electronic (1)
    • Grunge (1)
    • Hardcore (15)
    • Indie (1)
    • Post-Hardcore (1)
    • Psychedelic Rock (1)
    • Stoner (3)
  • Spoken word (1)

Search

Recent Posts

  • Deified—Anthrobscene EP (2020)
  • Buckshot Facelift—Ulcer Island (2018)
  • BillyBio—Feed the Fire (2018)
  • Krysthla—Worldwide Negative (2019)
  • Flotsam and Jetsam—The End of Chaos (2019)
  • Latitudes—Part Island (2019)
  • Cerberon—Cerberon EP (2018)

Most common tags

60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% 98% 100% 2007 2008 black black metal death Death metal doom England experimental Finland grindcore hardcore industrial Italy London melodic death metal metal metalcore music New York Norway NY prog progressive progressive metal punk review rock sludge Sweden thrash thrash metal UK US USA

Music genres

About the project Alternative Ambient Avant-garde Black Blues Crossover Death Depressive Doom Drone Electronic Experimental Folk Gothic Grindcore Groove Grunge Hardcore Heavy metal Indie Industrial Instrumental Metalcore Post-Hardcore Power metal Progressive Psychedelic Rock Punk Ragga Rock Sludge Speed metal Spoken word Stoner Thrash
Copyright © 2019 Gareth J M Saunders