Even with all the monstrous steps forward in terms of modern production for heavy metal albums, some bands still record straight analogue. Bands today have been acclaimed for doing so with some rather sketchy results (I’m looking at you first album of The Chariot), but over time the analogue inputs offer more of a real feel because it’s honest. Even with bands still recording like this, rarely do they just leave it exactly how it was first recorded. Nero Di Marte, a post-metal band from Bologna, Italy, decided to do exactly this. Their newest LP, Derivae, is 100% analogue recording and production, with no afterwork mastering. What you hear is what you get, and boy this album is a well-crafted composition.
Order Nero di Marte’s Derivae on CD or MP3.
This record has a sound that is expansive. From orchestrated dissonance to bellowing guitar riffs, guttural yells to vicious screams, pounding drums to intricate grooves, this album has a variety of ways to strike with. Usually I let the length of songs get the best of me. I find myself stricken with anxiety whenever there is only seven songs but 58 minutes worth of work, because my attention span never really developed past a half hour, but when a track like “L’Eclisse” explodes six and a half minutes in, my attention span has been refocused.
Derivae is intelligently written. The poly rhythms are maddening because of their shifting of time signatures. Each song has a way of building out of dissonance with destructive results. “Il Diluvio” takes inspiration from doom metal and adds layers of visceral screams and discordant melodies. From vocalist Sean Worrell’s perspective, the album is about “tragically searching for something that maybe isn’t there… letting yourself go and becoming swayed by the unknown.” And that sense is definitely felt in these tracks. “Pulsar” is an eerie mass of movements until unleashing the rest for the band as the song comes to a close.
Even the leviathan of a closer “Those Who Leave” spans 10 minutes, but it perfectly coves the vast spectrum of music that is found on this entire beast.
