LACASTA – Olibanvm

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7.0

• Bands:
  LACASTA
• Duration: 00:33:57
• Available from: 05/08/2026
• Label:

• Argonauta Records

“Olibanum, also known as frankincense, is a precious aromatic resin extracted from trees of the Boswellia genus, widespread in Africa, India and Arabia. It is famous for its millenary use in incense, perfumes and religious rituals”.

Six years after the debut “In Æternvm”, the LaCasta project reappears on the scene with the clear intention of refining its language and further 'metallising' the content of its proposal, ensuring that the hardcore/grind influences, today, are reduced to little more than a brushstroke on a painting that can be placed in the gallery of black metal in all respects.
Having moved for a long time in the footsteps of The Secret of “Solve et Coagula” and all those groups that, sponsored by labels such as Southern Lord, Deathwish or A389, monopolized part of the extreme underground between 2010 and 2013, the Apulian group becomes the protagonist of a tracklist that is undoubtedly more controlled than that of the aforementioned debut album, but no less negative and suffocating; an ambitious concept, focused on the ritual use of olibanum from ancient times to the present day, during which our band choose to unite around a formula that is neither obstinately retro and 'trve', nor modern in the strict sense or interested in who knows what openings and contaminations, for a half hour of music from which it is possible to draw the image of a band more expressive and aware than in the past.

A tense and lucid flow, where every transition takes place without major forcing and in which the riffing – an immovable cornerstone of the genre – remains at dignified levels from the beginning to the end of the listening, now looking at the razor cuts of Marduk and Dark Funeral (“Melma”), now at the punkish cut of a certain Norwegian school (“Feast for Parasites”), now at the drama of contemporary realities such as Wiegedood and Der Weg einer Freiheit, the all following the guidelines of an intense and spontaneous scream, good at modulating on the emotional ups and downs of the songwriting.
In short, if in February 2020 we found ourselves faced with a formation as ardent and blinded by hatred as it was disorganized in terms of structures, with pieces that gave the idea of ​​imploding/exploding without a precise objective in mind, this second full-length tells us a different story, setting out with practical sense and a decisive step on a path potentially capable of attracting various groups of followers of the Black Flame.

A real 'hit' is missing (and in our opinion the treatment given to the drums during production penalizes their incisiveness and dynamics), but “Olibanvm” is and remains an important crossroads for the Monopoli quartet, suggesting that in the future, with further refinements, the album of definitive focus may be within reach.