Hecate (Lo-Fi Creatures)

 “Hecate” is the first full length (and first release ever) of this young Italian Project formed in 2010. The music this quintet delivers at this six-track opus is an infernal mixture of Sludge, Doom and Black Metal, clocked at thirty minutes of nightmarish sonic torment. Since the opening track, oppressive and crushing atmospheres fill this record entirely; the guitar work here is a combination of crawling intensity and Black Metal aggressivity mixed up in order to create a unique and morbid blend of hellish music. The drum work is simple, accurate and absolutely devastating; once again we can find several drumming styles combined in single whole, just listen to the second track “Nia”, this song features some harsh blast beats in the finest “no-bullshit” Black Metal tradition, but at the same time also includes some slower structures, creating one of the most interesting compositions of the entire album… The vocals on this record, performed by two of the band’s members, consist in chaotic demonic grunts and shrieks that sound like blaspheming from hell itself, and even when there’re seems to be some pretty harmonic chants at some passages, the overall turbulent style always prevails over every attempt to make the music “lighter”… Is really hard to label this band within a single style, the whole album encloses different styles and structures combined in equal measures, resulting in one of the most original and unadorned traditional-sounding Black/Doom Metal releases I’ve heard in a while. The production of “Hecate” is very potent but definitely not the finest, all instrumentation seems to be intentionally soiled in order to create a messy, obscure and disgusting opus, with results worthy of listening to... I specially recommend this album for those who are looking for a crude, evil sounding and unadorned form of Black/Doom Metal away from the whole depressive, gothic or atmospheric tendencies… (AP)