Fields Of The Nephilim
Earth Inferno

THE REVIEW

"The strangers came and they were not like us. Something else, but wearing the skins of men, the eyes of men, their hands. We took collecting the sounds of them in our flesh, the aorisms of power, without substance, yet entirely substance; an unexplored integrity of sound. In these waveforms of kelestic symmetry, we felt the remote passing into definite. We saw the wings of change form within the ichor of their sounds; a thick smoke, sweet upon the tongue, curling into unimagined shapes that suggested surrender, ecstasy, pain, renewal.......

Our bodies begin to pulsate to a subliminal rhythm and we feel the imminence of contained energy, soon to be released. We dilate our throats to the air and resonate the ancient names. We convoke the Nephilim, and they come to us, strangers with the eyes of men..."

 
Extract from "The Coming of the Watchers", Mesopotamia circa 4000 BC.

"Earth Inferno" has a truly unique flavor, both for being the last release of the Fields of the Nephilim in their original lineup (let me say, both "Zoon" under the name Nephilim and the last work dated 2005 titled "Mourning Sun" have nothing to do with, indeed they tarnish, the name of a legend long dead and thus even more fascinating and shrouded in an aura of dust and darkness) and because it is a live album that in just nine tracks, with a total duration of about 78 minutes, captures the epic of a band that in just three full-length albums (plus a myriad of singles, EPs, and "posthumous" collections), in my opinion, has managed to give modern music something infinitely original, transcendental, unclassifiable and ethereal at the same time. From the beginnings flavored with strong bluesy and western legacies, with references to Sergio Leone's spaghetti western, to the majestic and epic "Sumerian" gothic rock of "Elizium", they have been able to distinguish themselves remarkably within a new wave/dark/gothic scene still heavily indebted to the tradition-breaking post punk/electro derivation and leave behind numerous proselytes who nevertheless never knew how to reach the compositional peaks of our men (see the equally excellent Garden of Delight).

The live album in question was recorded by combining the performances of the Fields of the Nephilim on three different dates around the fall of 1990, namely at the Brixton Academy, Wolverhampton Civic Centre, and Hamburg SportsHalle and represents the sublime testimony of their ability to create evocative atmospheres, sometimes cathartic, sometimes cosmic, varying between frantic, shamanic and/or reflective rhythms, through clean guitars capable of drawing arpeggios that know how to evoke ancient past suggestions (see preamble) or distorted, for scorching solos of clear blues/rock '70s matrix, all bound by the charismatic, deep, perfectly dominant presence of a monstrous Carl McCoy on vocals, baritone and hoarse narrator/high priest of our men's transcendental sound.

I think it's completely useless to describe "Earth Inferno" song by song (I imagine that the potential reader of this review is quite familiar with the group's discography, as well as their sound proposal, otherwise it's better to start from the alpha, therefore from "Dawnrazor" and not the omega, i.e., the LP under review), so I will limit myself to providing the tracklist:

 
•· Intro (Dead but Dreaming) - For Her Light (At the Gates of Silent Memory - Paradise Regained)

•· Moonchild

•· Submission

•· Preacher Man

•· Love Under Will

•· Sumerland

•· Last Exit For The Lost

•· Psychonaut

•· Dawnrazor

In conclusion, from a purely technical point of view, the audio quality of the album is extremely high (perhaps too much, so much as to arouse some doubts about its actual live production without the use of post-production overdubs), the individual technique is amazing as is the cohesion and compactness of the individual instrumental components, orchestrations included. The artwork is also noteworthy and evocative, containing an excerpt from an ancient testimony of a scribe of the temple of Ishur Ninku concerning the invocation of the mythical figures of the Nephilim (see preamble), moreover present and mentioned even in the Bible.

Nothing to say, a top-quality product that marks the end of the long artistic journey of a great band.

A must-have.