COSMIC PUTREFACTION – Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains

vote
7.5

• Bands:
  COSMIC PUTREFACTION
• Duration: 00:43:44
• Available from: 04/10/2024
• Label:

• Profound Lore

Streaming not yet available

Two years after the previous “Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones”, Gabriele Gramaglia's sidereal tale on board the Cosmic Putrefaction bus is enriched with a new chapter with a high-sounding title and content suspended between respect for specific canons and the will to open up to new musical scenarios, significantly freeing itself from some old comparisons and developing a more defined personality within the contemporary underground death metal panorama.
An evolution that, in some ways, the colors and the subject of Khaos Diktator's artwork (Devourment, Gaerea, Nordjevel) suggest to the listener, reconnecting to those of certain cornerstones of the symphonic black metal genre of the past, whose solutions and whose atmospheres demonstrate that they have been internalized by ours and can coexist harmoniously with the sound embraced and developed starting from the debut “At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm” (2019).
Always counting on the support of an attentive and respected label such as Profound Lore, the local artist therefore reappears on the scene with a work that cannot ignore the teachings of some sacred monsters (Demilich, Immolation, Morbid Angel from the Tucker era , etc.) and from a concept of death metal perched on tortuous rhythms, very dense riffs and on a writing that – in general – prefers to follow the thread of a free and daring narrative, but which at the time, thanks to a more accentuated musicality and the aforementioned Scandinavian influences, manages to express a change of pace compared to the past.
This “Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains” is a less rigid and 'academic' album; a work in which the technique, although present, does not want to be the light point on which to focus attention, and in which Gramaglia's voice and instruments – supported once again by Giulio Galati's drums (Nero di Marte, ex Hideous Divinity) – vibrate with a feeling that has never surfaced with so much insistence and conviction.
If compared with that of “Crepuscolar…”, the first real attempt by Cosmic Putrefaction to streamline its proposal, the tracklist is therefore even more compact and heralds passages that are catchy and memorable in their own way, designed both for lovers of virtuoso progressions, both for those who – even in a death metal context of this type – first and foremost require power and impact, with the influences of Emperor and Limbonic Art dotting the album's leaden celestial vault with stars.
The latter, expressed both in the form of carpets of synths and keyboards, and of clean vocal interventions that recall those of Ihsahn on albums such as “Anthems To The Welkin at Dusk” and “IX Equilibrium”, then make their way into the songwriting with moderation , without exceeding in pomposity or wanting to somehow dilute the visceral soul of the collection, which – from the opener “(Entering the Vortex Temporum) – Pre-Mortem Phosphenes” to the final title track – is and remains faithful to the aesthetic of the starting genre.
Having reached this point, the only element that, in our opinion, continues to limit the vision of Cosmic Putrefaction is given by compositions that seem more like an (excellent) collage of successful parts, rather than complete and finished songs (see the 'hits ' of current phenomena with which the one-man band inevitably has to deal, from Tomb Mold to Blood Incantation), but the turn of “Emerald…” also sounds encouraging from this aspect, giving a glimpse of future growth.
Ultimately, we are probably faced with the best the singer/multi-instrumentalist/producer has created in his feverish and visionary career.