We remain in exciting and excellent Italian underground scene with WILD STEEL. This band is solo project of Andrea De Stefanis a.k.a. Wild Steel. This is third full length opus since the inception of this entity in 2005. The third opus contains eleven songs, one being kind of instrumental epic intro ‘Dragonfly’ reminding me of Italian westerns and giallo horror soundtracks in some segments, maybe it is only me. The music of Wild Steel is power/true metal with lots of speed, up tempo and epic melodies sounding not at all as one man band, but like full orchestrated epic true metal band with symphonic keyboard passages, double bass fast drumming, guitar main melodies switching places with synth keyboard solos and main themes and decent vocals that fit great into music as a whole. Some of the choruses are just made for singing along to, pumping your fist in the air and being glad your metal heart still beats in this world of madness and music sometimes really saves I can safely say. My personal favorites are ‘Age Of Steel’, power ballad ‘Live Again’ and ‘Final Battle’, you find yours by listening to this great opus.
ANGUANA is another band from the mighty Italian underground scene. This is their new EP containing 6 songs, two of them being atmospheric instrumentals which serve as kind of intermezzo between the songs. Anguana play mixture of raw old school black metal, melodic atmospheric black with touch of folk influences which can be heard in the song structures, like in the title song for example, which starts with folk metal guitar work, evolving into fast, aggressive, yet melancholic melodic black metal song, like Italian bands do. I love the use of choir clean vocals, reminding me of Bathory behind the black metal vocals which at times reminded me of Satyr from Satyricon with similarity of voice. Lyrics are in Italian and local dialect and deal with witchery, folk tales and tradition, this band being from Venetian region, meaning north of Italy. The usage of synth is sounding more dungeon synth and fits perfectly to the whole atmosphere of this opus, making it even more versatile and interesting for listening. This is good band and I am looking forward to the full length one day.
LANAYAH are based in Southern California and they are releasing their third opus with this one. This is a concept album and it was first imagined as one song album of fourty minutes, but was later cut into eight pieces which complement and fit one into another perfectly. Now, the music of LANAYAH is not easy to describe. It is a bit experimental. I will try to describe it as mixture of doomgaze, post rock, post metal and some post black metal influences thrown in the song structures. I can also hear some sludge over and undertones making this music musty, heavy and hard to process if you are not into such kind of music. But, when you listen to the album carefully as a whole you will get the bigger picture and come to grasp what the band tried to create with their wall of sound, tortured vocals, noisy riffs, thundering bass distortion and some electronics thrown in for good measure. My personal favorites are heavy hitters like ‘Staring Blankly’, ‘Knife Mirror’ and epic ‘Carrying Fire’ which is longest song of the record but it was an interesting listening for me. If you are into something different, you will love what Lanayah does.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 