Style: Prog Metal, Death Metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Andy
Country: Italy
Release date: 7 July, 2022
Hey you! Yes you! Do you miss Oldpeth? I mean actual Oldpeth (Orchid to Still Life). Then boy do I have the album for you! Italian one man band Marlugubre’s sophomore album is clearly an attempt to appeal to the still somehow endless mob crying out for growls to return to Opeth. Maladie accidentally skips an era too far back from the most popular Midpeth, the mixed vocal prog death onslaught of Maladie featuring the blackened tinge of the first three Opeth albums along with more uniquely integrated post metal stylings. While my peer Christopher elegantly wrote of Dream Theater, Tool, and now Devin Townsend clones always being a stone’s throw away, he chose not to mention the ever-increasing number of Opeth imitators. Even the story provided on Bandcamp for Maladie closely mirrors that of Still Life, a ballsy choice considering it is one of the most cherished albums in the prog canon.
Unlike many introductory tracks, “Milady” brilliantly sets the tone with Serena de Angelis providing angelic vocals atop clean guitar arpeggios. The next track “Bleak Are the November Nights”–they really tried to channel mid 90s Akerfeldt with the titling conventions–merges Iapetus’ grand cosmic guitar melodies with Sólstafir’s slow-building post black metal crescendos at its best, yet like many one man bands fall victim to, the track ultimately lacks some necessary paring. Moments repeat to tedium such as the wistful strums adjacent to the final blackened death metal section. A worse culprit of induced-monotony is the penultimate song, “In Succubus Mind,” which features fourteen minutes of exactly the same as preceded it, offering little variation.
Song length critiques are to be expected when reviewing virtually any one man band, however, so how do the good parts compare to the genre’s most elite? “The Coeur of Magdalene,” the most obvious homage/ripoff of “The Face of Melinda” possible, exemplifies the full gap in quality between the artists as the song unabashedly copies riff for riff its entire namesake; furthermore, as expected the production, growls, and pacing of Marlugubre’s version are all left in the dust by “The Face of Melinda” itself. The track certainly isn’t bad, but Marlugubre’s motivations may be misguided. When directly mimicking Oldpeth like in the section at 7:15 in “In Succubus Mind,” Marlugubre sounds uninspired and frankly mediocre, yet when embracing their own melodic post black side like throughout most of “Le Valtzer Macabre” the band is at least mostly engaging. The biggest hiccups are amateurish clean vocals and motionless clean guitar sections which lack the dynamic shifts of prime Opeth.
Considering Tiziano Colella tackles nearly every facet of the sound and instrumentation, the performances across the board are great apart from those clean vocals which lack power and often seem a little flat. Otherwise, the guitar throughout sounds nice, especially leads and solos; the bass provides sufficiently interesting counterpoint; and the death metal drums and harsh vocals, while not highlights, get the dirty job done. Unfortunately, the penchant for jaw-droppingly sexy melodies Mikael Akerfeldt has built up for nearly the last three decades is simply lacking here.
At the very least, Marlugubre chose an interesting sound to mirror: I can immediately think of dozens of bands who go bananas for the Midpeth style yet only a handful who aim to conquer the pre-Blackwater Park era sound. While Marlugubre doesn’t pass with flying colors, that style alone is commendable and would make any followup interesting by default. If Colella steps even more out of the gargantuan Akerfeldtian shadow, he may find more success. I will send you off with poignant writing from Christopher: “If you’re going to invest so much effort in sounding like another artist you’re inevitably going to remind listeners that they could be listening to that artist instead.” While we all have lots of reviews that influence still, we all rip off Christopher.
Recommended tracks: Milady, Le Valtzer Macabre, Taciturn Landscape of a Violets Field
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Be’lakor, Sólstafir
You may also like: Descend, Culak, Iapetus
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: independent
Marlugubre is:
– Tiziano Colella (everything)
With:
– Serena de Angelis (vocals track 1)
– Michele Passariello (fretless bass track 3)
1 Comment
Marlugubre · August 28, 2022 at 17:15
As the creator of the album, you find me not agreeing at all with the whole analysis of the review.
You told me that In Succubus Mind is uninspired and the same as the previous track, but are you sure you have listened to the album properly?
Let me be clear, anyone can give me a negative review and in fact I thank you for reviewing the album, but also try to get right what you write, to me here it sounded like the opposite.