Continuing in that “weird but mostly interesting” tradition of Italian heavy metal (Death SS, Opera IX, et. al.) Advent goes forth with their debut. A whole bunch of bands come to mind here: Mithotyn (which is the strongest influence) Vintersorg, late-period Emperor, Falkenbach, Solstice, Amon Amarth.. So yeah...it’s Italian melodic-black-metal-viking-H.P. Lovecraft lovin’ action with a penchant for dark ambient.
(((1))) Strange, twangy guitar intro (sounding like Steve Earle for a few seconds!?!) mixed with melodic death/black plus some nice traditional/clean vocal parts and lots of tempo shifts to keep you interested.
(2) Sounds like a demo track from Mithotyn, rudimentary blackened viking/death metal. Doesn’t get good until the melodic parts at 4:45. The lyrics are either old Norse/Icelandic or Norwegian (not printed in the booklet). Otherwise, it’s nothing special.
(((3))) Nice classical influenced dark ambient intro building up to basic yet progressive & melodic black/death metal. A nice sword n’ sorcery movie breakdown, too.
((((4)))) Melodic, dark ambient interlude. While Orges would likely say “avoid”, I’d say I just wish it were longer.
(((5))) Katatonia crossed with Amon Amarth, Mithotyn & Falkenbach (aka: lots of odd drum machine/electro-drum parts ‘ala Falkenbach & English weirdos Benighted Leams). Killer headbangin’ awesome break down at: 2:13. Strange but worth it.
(((6))) A basic 5-note riff followed by more melancholic DM parts somewhere around Amon Amarth crossed with old Katatonia? Some niiiice riffs at 1:08-2:19 (weirdly enough getting just a few miles north of Carcass jamming with Molly Hatchett) and more BM sounding later on. ] The title seems to be a typo but put it on your “Metal tunes about Cthulhu” list, anyway.
((((7)))) More strange yet excellent riffing. The drumming is rather erratic at times but in a good way like the oddities found on Benighted Leams’ “Astral Tenabaum” album mixed with (Norsk heathen metallers) Kampfar & Vintersorg. The riffs & William Blake quotes make this a real winner.
((((8))) A bit like the #7 but with a more straight-forward traditional extreme metal style(s). Again, some very niiice riffing! 1:04-1:19 & Italian lyrics. Translation please...
(((9))) Outro with dark ambience and Diamanda Galas-like piano playing (aka: all of the really LOUD chords!) maybe they could do a whole EP of these kinds of things?