

vote
7.0
- Band:
Alzhagoth - Duration: 00:38:06
- Available from: 03/14/2025
- Label:
-
Inertial Music
After a series of singles that announced the release of the first full-length, here is finally the first long distance job of the Paduan Alzhagoth. The band was recently founded (2019), but some members who make it up have gained experiences passed in bands known within the national underground panorama: the guitarist Michele Donato and the keyboardist Raffaele Benvegnù come from the Melodic Melodian Death Metal Band of the Algol (whose latest album dated back to 2016), while the singer Matteo Patuelli comes from an experience gained in Folk Metal Metal. Vallorch band.
In the case of Alzhagoth it is important to underline this aspect, because it can be said that the musical genre proposed, after all, is nothing but a combination of the background that the musicians have brought behind, to which different elements must be added compared to the genres of the groups of origin.
The group is presented as a Pagan Death Metal band, a somewhat unusual definition as pagan metal often, from a stylistic point of view, rather meets folk or black metal; However, rethinking precisely to the groups in which in the past they have played the individual musicians, and listening to their record debut, it must be said that this definition fits rather by brush for the Alzhagoth and makes their proposal decidedly interesting.
Speaking more in detail of “A Finem”, the starting point for musical construction is undoubtedly largely adherent to the Death Metal, as they said, but not only: the extreme metal proposed by the band has some reference to other genres such as the black metal, technical thrash metal and the symphonic metal (“Ancient Blood” is a good example of this combination). The album starts immediately well with the “Sermons of the Blind” Open, a pressing song supported here by a black metal-oriented melodic riffing, with the band that does not spare itself as regards guitar solos or virtuous keyboard passages. Furthermore, here as in other songs, for example “Resurrection of the Fallen”, there is no shortage of progressive moments (another legacy inherited from the algols).
Apart from a couple of short passages with an epic touch, the 'Pagan' side of the Alzhagoth is perceptible, but never too evident: there are passages in which the style can vaguely remember the Amon Amarth (as on “Herald of Chaos” or “Grievous Diorama”) or the Ancient Rites (listen to “sacrifice”). With the passing of the minutes it is understood that the proposed style is very complex and, as mentioned before, the Death Metal often acts as a basis on which numerous other elements from Black to folk are overlapping, but also from prog to thrash metal (as on “ultramontrs”).
It is true, there is a lot of meat on the fire, but after numerous plays it can be reached that the Paduan formation is able to close the circle and to present itself to the public convincingly, with a praise to production, clear and powerful at the same time, certainly professional: at the moment, in the national underground panorama of ours represent a stylistic peculiarity, as well as a bet.
“At Finem” is therefore overall a stimulating release even if not for all tastes because, like any project not well defined and classifiable, it sometimes risks not satisfying everyone.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM