Dark Quarterer
Ithaca

Homer has nothing to do with it.

The Ithaca imprinted on the cover of the sixth album by the Tuscan band Dark Quarterer actually references the eponymous poem by Kavafis from 1911, as a metaphor for the journey as a quest for knowledge. Knowledge becomes tangible through the understanding of the world, via rational and empirical tests, which need to be absorbed gradually, over many years, perhaps until the last breath, as experience is the route to knowledge, it is a sea on which life itself sails.

The journey is experience, experience is knowledge, knowledge is understanding: understanding is Ithaca! The island of human fulfillment, life lived to its fullest, life at the brink of death, with old age whispering to our aged eardrums that the journey's meaning is not the destination but the journey itself, for within it lies the significance of the adventurous Odyssey that is our life, our perpetual wandering towards truth.

A philosophical concept depicted in the artwork as the longed-for destination. A pebbled shore, the hero, transformed in spirit, shedding the past by casting his helmet to the ground. The hero returns battered but more lucid and self-aware: the hero has grown.

The helmet in the artwork should be Corinthian and seems made of bronze: attributes far removed from the typical Mycenaean battle gear, which featured leather helmets decorated with boar tusks. The curious thing is that Odysseus himself wears one of these helmets in Book X of The Iliad. Now, this is certainly not a critique of the cover, as art seeks beauty before historical precision, so a Mycenaean helmet would seem ridiculous compared to the one used in that image. However, it should be considered that Kavafis uses the Homeric myth—Odysseus in particular as a personification of the reader—to express a deeper concept: the journey as a stimulus for a lively and gradual spiritual growth. This is an eternal concept—void of space and time—which makes the "poetic license" of a helmet depicted in an artwork meant to evoke the Homeric world acceptable, even if the Corinthians are barely mentioned in The Iliad; but that's alright, because even if an astronaut's helmet had appeared on that beach, the concept would not have changed: Odysseus, Cyclopes, and Lestrygonians, are nothing but allegories meant to weave the oft-cited theme of the journey, that is, the flow of events that inexorably changes the consciousness of a man.

Ithaca evokes the ancient world but musically confronts itself with a modern sound that moderately nods to today's prog metal, although it is imbued with the typical epic approach that serves as a perpetual trademark for a band that, at the end of the 80s, was able to translate the darkest and most wizardly epics into music: Colossos of Argill and Gates of Hell from the first album remain indelible traces in the history of epic metal, worthy of the great masters of the genre, such as Manilla Road and Cirith Ungol. Ithaca almost entirely loses the Sabbathian mood, and with it the perversion for the harshest and most catacombal sounds. The cause is the distant departure of Fulberto Serena and his acid, gloomy, and unmistakable guitar work. His replacement, Sandro Tersetti, will partly reprise those sounds on Wartears, from 1993, an album with clear nods to classic metal but does not forsake prog, nor a subtle hint of seventies hard rock. At the dawn of the XXI century, the axe is instead handed over to the skillful hands of Francesco Sozzi. The sound becomes clear and vaguely neoclassical, also thanks to the intervention of Francesco Longhi on keyboards, who will mildly modernize the band's sound. This reality is already noticeable with Symbols from 2008; a fascinating full-length though daunting and obsessive in the rhythms; hence with Ithaca (2015), the sound shifts towards more fluid territories: the heavy gallops return but the guitars remain massive to the point of subtly nodding to musical tendencies seemingly distant from the proposal in question, such as Dream Theater and Symphony X. We have proof of this theory by listening to the opener Path of Life, a monolith bristling on buzzing guitars, accompanied by martial drumming and a dreamy singing, laden with the typical, visceral melancholy that only epic metal can offer. Night Song and Nostalgia seal this musical philosophy; in particular, the former, is nautical and captivating in the verses—credit to Longhi—but also evocative and solemn in its electric part, with a poetic and adventurous chorus taking the lead. Even in this musical birth, Dark Quarterer do not forget the seventies: Escape and Last Fight—in their expressive sound—gracefully reference Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, while veteran Paolo Ninci pounds on the toms, blending two styles into one: progressive metal and seventies hard rock! Gianni Nepi's voice is powerful and otherworldly: a champion of vocal technique and acting, who also finds the time to pluck the strings of his beloved bass, weaving sumptuous and solemn rhythms.

A special mention to the ghost track at the end where Nepi recites some verses from Kavafis' poem while the Sozzi-Longhi duo indulges in sonic improvisations scented with salt air.

A final reflection: it is touching to see how an underground band has injected so much passion and research into a project that unfortunately will be placed in the hands of the few chosen ones. In this case, it's not about being custodians of steel, but observing a reality that was already vibrant in the late eighties and still stands tall today, despite white hair, lineup changes, and the siege of daily commitments (see Nepi's vocal coach activities in Piombino), finds the time to produce a work full of refinement, flair, and creative spirit.

A bow.