HERETKAU – Amentit

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7.0

• Bands:
  HERETKAU
• Duration: 00:38:58
• Available from: 03/26/2026

Jesus Ain't In Poland were a group from Modena who created dark grindcore, accustomed to sludge dilations, who reached the peak of their expressiveness in their third album (the double “No Man's Land”, 2018), in an evolution not far from that achieved years earlier by Steve Austin's Today Is The Day.
In the long and heartbreaking songs contained in the second volume of that album (listen to “Beyond The Within”) lie the seeds from which Heretkau sprouted, a trio made up of two members of Jesus Ain't In Poland (Gioele Pelloni and Simone Ascari) and bassist Massimo Tanganelli (Sonido Envolvente).

At this juncture, “Amentit” is a forty-minute monolith, whose division into five movements is superfluous, given that each segment abruptly falls into the next, moving from one riff to another, with a strategy that, at least at first glance, may seem risky to many listeners.
From a cinematographic perspective, in fact, Heretkau offer the vision of a panorama devastated by a conflict that left no survivors, in an infinite sequence shot that opens with the twilight arpeggios of “I”, soon trampled by a sludge pace made up of long lowered chords, to which the rhythm section now acts as a discreet accompaniment, now as a counterpoint, as in the section “II”, which recalls the anxiety-inducing work of Tool on “Lateralus” and “Fear Inoculum”.
If “III” reconnects with the ferocious and at the same time decadent sound of Neurosis on “A Sun That Never Sets”, “IIII” lingers on a more traditionally post-metal step, reminiscent of Isis on “Panopticon” (resulting in the least interesting fragment of the lot), while “IIIII” is divided between doom spirals that pay tribute to the more atmospheric Ufomammuts and sudden accelerations, until it collapses in five minutes of drone music.
The album as a whole appears to be a well-thought-out and well-structured work, far from the concept of live recording of an improvisation, and moves at ease between sounds that have been familiar to us for at least twenty years, oscillating between the fascinating (“III”, “IIII”) and the inevitable déjà-vu effect (“II”, “IIII”).

Net of these impressions, “Amentit” is still an interesting album, which starts from the experiences gained by Heretkau in their previous musical lives and, despite its length, less demanding than expected. If what Neurot Recordings has produced in recent years has fascinated you, this album will certainly not leave you indifferent.