Sometimes Death Metal doesn’t need to be elaborate or elongated - sometimes a quick slasher with the blade does the trick as easily as the more complicated chainsaw massacre. The Italian Death Metal guys in Fulci surely know about the usage of the blade just like The New York Ripper did. And now the former is back with a record about the latter. Intriguing!
First off I gotta tell you that I am not much of a Giallo guy. In fact, until rolling up my sleeves for this review the only Italian exploitation flick I’d seen was Mario Bava’s famous Cani arrabbiati (“Rabid Dogs”). After finding found out that it’s one of the staples of the genre, I bowed my head down and went back to my place of comfort – “elevated horror” (for lack of a better term) and have been there ever since. But, reader, my love for you is undeniably strong enough to not keep me from watching another of exploitation film, Lo squartatore di New York (“The New York Ripper”) by Lucio Fulci, which obviously, the band takes their name from the director and have created their latest record based on the said film. If I were to write about the record, I just couldn’t avoid watching the film. And needlessly though it must be added, your enjoyment of the record probably won’t be effected whether you’ve seen the film or not.
Unsurprisingly, the album begins with few seconds of a dialogue taken from the film and we get straight to the business. Just before getting to the second minute of the song, there are already numerous riffs to fill a four-minute Death Metal song and this is truly the secret gift of this band. They do not like fillers, and pack a lot in very short bursts. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. Admittedly though, this approach at times works to the detriment of their compositions. For example, there are particular riffs on the album that you don’t want to end – especially the chuggier sections that come in to play at a time for the songs to get into tension release mode – but they end way too quickly. I have to say this was my biggest gripe with the whole record the entire time. But hey, this is an extremely competent band that really knows what they’re doing and so there are other types of anchor points that help make the record to be more memorable, all placed carefully and evenly throughout the album.
From a short but satisfying injection of 80’s Synth Lounge to 90’s Body Count inspired Rap Metal beats to an obscure and abstracted interlude that’s made out of sound bites and samples taken from the film. Not only that they work as resting parts for the listener, they also provide a great deal of saturation to the record. Personally I find that quite refreshing because the type of Death Metal Fulci play is solid but a classic combination of Old School and Brutal Death Metal, with pinches of doomy riffs sprinkled around, supported by a balanced and clear yet still raw production. So the band is not here to surprise you but rather to execute a solid Death Metal experience that you can revisit years later and still enjoy. If you dig bands like Necrot, early Tomb Mold, Extremity and appreciate a rather apprehensible form of Death Metal, you will certainly spend a lot of time with this album.
The best way to close the review would be mentioning the album’s cinematic closer - at three minutes and two seconds, the longest track on the record. It begins with retro Ambient synths and quickly forms into a Doom Death song, “Il Miele Del Diavolo” and starts delivering a very satisfying climax, led by a sexy and wild saxophone only to be faded out almost abruptly and anti-climactically to not deliver the comfort the listener needs. Very reminiscence of the finale in The New York Ripper: Things happened and there is nothing to mourn or celebrate for. Brutally and unforgivingly life goes on …
