vote
7.5
- Band:
Death SS - Duration: 00:46:26
- Available since: 09/05/2025
- Label:
-
Lucifer Rising
Streaming not yet available
Well and evil: two entities that have always been present in the human soul. The first, clear and visible to the eyes of others, the second, deeper and rebounded, eager to emerge, but prudently silent by the ego, sovereign judge of our choices. A theme, that of the double personality, repeatedly subject to discussion also in the artistic field: writers, musicians and directors have bold themselves on the matter, representing, each in its own way, the particularities of this fascinating dualism.
The debate also wanted to participate the Death SS, releasing a concept album entitled “The Entity”, in which Steve Sylvester and his companions highlighted the most intimate, external and irrational aspects of this eternal challenge.
A story in which literature, cinema and comics have once again played a main role in the artistic exploration completed by the Tuscan band, skilled, as always, to mix music, entertainment, occult and theatricality, stamping with the Death SS stamp all and twelve the songs of the disc, already distributed in recent months in a special format of four EP.
At the first release in the studio with the current formation, now stable for three years (Giulio al Guitar, Dimitri on bass and Max on drums), the Death SS deliver us a very heterogeneous album, once again testifying to the ability to insert stylistic variations between one piece and the other, which has always been a trademark of the group.
Four -handed product, with the same Steve Sylvester in command station and supported by the authoritative work of Tom Dalgety (already at work with the Ghost and Rammstein), “The Entity” puts on the table the multidaceous experience of the band which, to better accompany the various emotional states of the concept, has decided to marry more classic metal sounds than the latest works, guaranteeing a body and powerful. At the same time clean.
The album starts with the exaltation of latent entity and its driving force. It is “Ave Adonai”, tracing the poem of Aleister Crowley, to open his doors: an acid and perverse piece, with a old-scaol stamp, introduced by the sinister notes of Freddie delirio, then developing as an evocative litany, seasoned by a series of median voices to define the spiritual nature of the song.
The other side of the ego is therefore manifested in the different elected designated: primarily Robert Wringhim, the “Justified Sinner”, told in the novel of the same name by James Hogg, here at the center of a song Catchy, with a very catchy refrain, which ships us directly into the hard rock matrix of the 80s.
Following, after an indiance “possession”, whose rhythms, albeit less impetuous, refer us to the legendary “Cursed Mama”, we find the famous Dr. Henry Jekyll, struggling with his double-feminine: that “Sister Hyde” staged in the 1971 film film of the same name (in Italy presented as “Barbara, the London monster”), Death SS with a Midtempo with 'Cooperian', with scratchy riffs, once again showing the horrifying inclination, typical of the tricolor band, here revealed by the work on the keyboards of the same delusion and supported by the female choirs, to underline the second nature of the English doctor.
A first part of concept certainly thick and engaging that closes with two very different episodes with each other: while “Two Souls” presents us with the Psycho-rock side of the Sylvester creature (we would have seen it well in “Panic”), embellished with an instrumental detachment where the arzigoles of delirium make the same with the axle of the guitarist Ghiulz, is the sinuous ballad ” To get me ”to focus attention on the fears and remorse of Jekyll himself, now aware of his terrible double nature.
“The Entity” therefore continues his analysis of the human underwear with the psychological and physical collapse of the London doctor; And he does it with a song (“Hell is revealed”) frankly less effective than the previous ones, due to a not very incisive arrangement, in addition to a proof that is not so impactful by the Pesaro frontman. Weaknesses that are restored by the subsequent and poignant “Love Until Death”, the second ballad of the album that anticipates the entry on the scene of a new individual owned by the evil entity.
“The Whitechapel Wolf” inspired by the character of Jack The Ripper, it reaches Our ears, making us enter the streets of London with guitar -off guitar at Randy Rhods, while Steve's song alternates evil to the narrative part of the story.
There was talk of the proverbial metamorphosis of the Death SS, which has certainly had its highest points in the past but which today also finds elements of sure interest; We find yet another testimony of this in the final part of the full-length. Take for example “The Evil Painter”: a song outside the ordinary time, with an intimate and delicate affected, which brings out the not strictly metal side is more seventies than Steve's musical formation, calling the Blue Öyster Cult sound.
A light piece, at times carefree, underlying by the subsequent “Cimeter”, presented here by a peremptory and hypnotic piece, to seal the fulminating energy for which the same sexy zombie had become famous at the end of the 70s thanks to the writer Renzo Barbieri. The furious and continuous evolution of the entity, after having owned the bodies of men and women, finally finds its artistic status, managing to transmit its energy to very particular 'elected', called to create magical and cathartic force in the form of music.
The definitive work is “Evil Never Dies”, which allows the extent to speak firsthand through ours, having now taken full control of the Death SS creature. Poderosa, from the rocky sound, the final trace of the album squeezes the ear to the “Heavy Demons” classics, thus closing an compelling concept album that testifies to the now historic evolutionary capacity of the Italian band.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
