Death metal | Metal | Progressive metal
70%
Recorded at Acme recording studio and slept upon for months by Davide Rosati (a real professionist!). Mixed and salvaged at Potemkin Studio by Paolo Ojetti and Alessandro Vagnoni (mixing assistant).
Straight off the bat, with “The origin” (track 1) this album has a rough and ready old school thrash feel to it. They call themselves death metal, but this definitely sounds more like thrash.
And that’s perhaps what I like most about this album: just as soon as you’ve settled on one definite genre and neatly pigeonholed them Rusurrecturis wriggles and squirms and they morph into something else. Which makes for one interesting album.
“Prologue” (track 2) is heavy song, but it’s melodic with a guitar solo played through a phaser pedal which gives it a bit of a space age feel. And beneath it is a delicate, tinkling piano. The song morphs into “Fuck face” (track 3) which is back to an in-your-face thrashing metal stab in the faccccccce.
“Corpses forever” (track 4) is a very straightforward death metal song featuring a gutteral Cookie Monster vocal. “The artist” (track 5) has a latter-days Celtic Frost feel. It is slow and brooding, it is heavy and avant-garde with melodic female vocals. Then it’s back to largely generic death metal with “Save my anger” (track 6) apart from the almost nu-metal style shouty-melodic chorus.
Track 7 introduces us to another face of Resurrecturis. “Calling our names” is a ballad, in the style of a Pantera ballad. It is fragile and melodic but heavy as.
“After the show” (track 8) initially feels like ‘proper’ death metal, in the tradition of Chuck Schuldiner and Death, but in typical Resurrecturis style they throw in a few other influences, and a melodic chorus gets barked down in a very call-and-answer way. Good stuff.
“The fracture” (track 9) is a solid metal song with mostly clean vocals, a cracking melody, and a enough kickdrums to keep most metalheads happy. “Away from the flock” (track 10) has quite an ‘acidic’ guitar intro, and it’s back to the growling vocals. This is probably the darkest-sounding song on the album.
“Where shall I go from here?” (track 11) has quite a nu-metal feel but does feature a fantastic interweaving dual-guitar duel halfway through that segues into a passionate solo.
“Walk through fire” (track 12) follows in the vein of track 9, with clean and growling vocals trading lines. This has a more traditional melodic death metal vibe to it.
“In retrospective” (track 13) opens with an ambient soundscape, like a restaurant or drinks evening. Cue acoustic guitar and heartfelt vocals. It’s not at all what I expected.
Never judge an album by the cover. I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about putting this album on but boy! I’m glad I did.
Review score: 70%
It was only while I was adding the CD details, having already written the review, that I remembered there was a DVD with this release. “The Fracture (videoclip)” is a bare-chested display of testosterone-fuelled metal. “Making of” is… shows a few behind-the-scenes clips of the making of “The Fracture”; I didn’t find it particularly interesting, to be honest.
There follows a photogallery and video credits, and then the DVD finishes with 17 minutes of Resurrecturis live at Luckau, Germany from 26 May 2006. More bare chests and the drummer for some reason has an elastoplast on his forehead! The playing is good enough, the sound isn’t great, and the stagemanship is a little dull but it’s certainly nice to see the band playing live.
DVD score: 30%