Artica
Plastic Terror

A couple of years ago, when I was deeply into gothic metal and dark music in general, I stumbled upon this album, "Plastic Terror" by the Romans Artica. Due to my ignorance, I admit that I didn't know this band at all, which I later found out had a decade-long experience in this field. So, I decided to jot down a few lines about this 2006 effort of theirs, also as an excuse to re-listen to this CD that had been sitting on my shelf for a long time. When I bought and listened to it on repeat for about a week, I concluded that the album wasn't exactly the masterpiece that everyone praised, at least according to my tastes, of course. It certainly had some powerful, sensually dark, and fascinating songs, but there was something that kept me from fully appreciating it. Two years have passed, let's see if, like good wine, this album has improved with time.

The beginning is intense with the aggressive "Black Eyes", featuring sharp guitars in an eternal riff and keyboards with melancholic and atmospheric shades. The voice alternates between deeper, almost baritone moments to others leaning more towards scream, though it maintains its underlying depth. The track serves to guide us towards the 2006 iteration of Artica: more inclined towards metal outbursts (as previously mentioned) and, something that will certainly surprise long-time fans of the group, more open to new idioms. The album contains eleven tracks, two of which are in Italian and one in German (certainly a departure from previous Italian works). The extensive switch to English perhaps signals the band's desire to break into foreign markets and where gothic metal culture is more widespread and followed.

"Sacrificium" continues where the previous track left off, with its big guitars emerging from the mist they themselves created in the tense verse. Certainly, it's an ear-catching song, dark enough and capable of leaving a mark.

Decidedly more beautiful is the title track, very gothic and desperate in its labyrinthine and layered progress, which culminates in an airy and atmospheric chorus. So far, this is perhaps the best track on the album, the one that in theory can make it stand out from the crowd.

The next surprise of the batch is "Ocean". Here we have perhaps the only ballad-like track of "Plastic Terror": the dreamy guitars join with the more rugged, metal-styled ones to create a beautiful atmosphere with dark blue shades, with an arpeggio in the chorus that's so imaginative and nocturnal that it brings to mind a sky partially shrouded by fast-moving clouds, almost like chariots that carry the sun and swap it with the moon.

Among the remaining tracks, I would only mention "The Deserter", with its very dark wave chorus, and "I Don't Fit", atmospheric like the previously mentioned "Ocean". The rest, even after two years from my first listens, fails to impress me: they are certainly good songs, with catchy and typically gothic riffs, yet I find myself having to reaffirm my old impression. Regarding the two tracks in Italian, I find them rather inadequate, artificial, let's say plastic: I simply cannot reconcile our language with the genre proposed by Artica in this album, and I can't explain it, given that I find Italian very musical and poetic when used correctly (Diaframma, Novembre, Klimt 1918, and many others prove this). Maybe it's due to a more punk and fierce attitude present in "Aggressione" and "Roma Brucia", or the lack of atmosphere, but I just can't stomach these two songs, even though I've tried listening to them repeatedly.

In summary, "Plastic Terror" is a decent album, far from being a masterpiece, but it deserves a listen, if only for those 5/6 songs that stand out from the general flatness.