Tenebrae in Perpetuum

L'Eterno Maligno Silenzio

Written by: EW on 05/02/2010 15:40:35

In this collection of underground blackened hordes I've been recently assigned I'm exploiting the fact I'd never previously heard of any of the bands by reading nothing into their history, band members, previous releases and often deluded band statements, to concentrate solely on the music. Yes, stripping away as much as I can that often clouds or biases one's opinion on musical releases (especially BM albums like these) to obtain a review, and a grade, that is as honest as I can possibly give and in the process, weed out the successes from the also-rans in a genre where new underground entities must be formed somewhere in the world every 18 seconds.

This self-denial of information leads me nicely to Tenebrae in Perpetuum and their/his (?) album "L'Eterno Maligno Silenzio". Given the language of the song titles I'm going to assume this band is Italian, unless of course the new fad in Norway and Sweden is to aim for titles like the distinctly non-kvlt "Percepire La Luce Attraverso Il Sepolcro" or "Il Morto Cthulhu Aspetta Sognando". TiP are frankly what one imagines when they are tasked with describing a typical underground black metal band, sounding highly like classic-era Darkthrone (think "Transilvanian Hunger" meets "Under A Funeral Moon") or if you want a more modern perspective, a less good Watain. So yes, given these facts I might as well try and highlight how TiP are any different to the 6,666 other bands worshipping at the altar of Darkthrone, and thus worth your listening effort, rather than explain what that sound is, because frankly if you don't know by this far into the review you're probably reading the wrong review. Among the cymbal-tapping, snare-hammering (or necro-pounding for the kvlt among us) drums, reverb-drenched guitars, demonic shrieks and virtually bass-less sound across "L'Eterno Maligno Silenzio" is the odd attempt at varying the formula enough to make the album just about listenable. Tracks like "Il Morto Cthulhu Aspetta Sognando" and "Rapitemi, Anime Della Natura" are the home to some baritone clean male vocals of the kind that fires up mental images of Church/religious song, breaking up as it does the shrieks into more palatable and involving moments of depth and intrigue. I imagine the band were not keen on rocking the establishment's boat too greatly (as tends to be the case in the narrow-minded confines of true BM), however these clear vocals take the songs above the absolute bare minimal level required and I propose that if the band trusted in them more and showed the confidence to throw away their "How To Plagiarise Darkthone in Five Easy Steps" handbook it could be a tactic worth exploring further if they wish to make waves in this densely crowded landscape.

Other than this I can't think of anything to report that would make TiP really worth your effort, and I'm thus grading them appropriately as a band merely approaching the top-end of average for their genre. There's nothing distinctly wrong on "L'Eterno Maligno Silenzio", but on the other hand why would you play this over the Watain’s and countless other better bands in the world of black metal?

Download: Il Morto Cthulhu Aspetta Sognando, Rapitemi, Anime Della Natura
For The Fans Of: Darkthrone, Watain, UGBM.
Listen: Label website (No Myspace)

Release date: 25.09.2009
Debemur Morti Productions

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.