Hortus Animae
The Blow Of Furious Winds

For all those who are now convinced that the term gothic associated with metal music equates to pure garbage. For those who believe that the female voice is the main canon of the genre. And for those who, having consolidated their knowledge of Lacuna Coil over the years, have never bothered to discover the Italian metal underground, which is teeming with small brilliant gems like this: Hortus Animae, an Italian band from Rimini active since the distant 1997, which offers us an extreme and powerful metal yet at the same time symphonic and open to melody with a gothic touch always present in the ever-sought atmospheres.

In 2005 "The blow of furious winds" was released, their second album, which in my opinion was highly ignored (or at least underestimated) by the public and critics. To define their sound, I could talk about an (impossible) progressive and inspired version of the latest Cradle Of Filth, which however does not need entire orchestras or stage tricks to express lyricism, suffering passion, and morbid feelings. Martyr Lucifer's voice (also the bassist) also spares us the highly ridiculous antics that have made the English dwarf Dani Filth famous in recent years, alternating angry guttural voices with an evocative and subdued melodic singing. What about the instrumentation? Hortus Animae displays undeniable compositional abilities and technical mastery from the very first track "Furious winds - Locusts", an excellent initial mix of melody and violence.

"The mud and the blood - Funeral nation" shows us the band's great ability to assemble aggressive parts, atmospheric breaks, and passionate melodies built on splendid guitar solos and piano backdrops in nine minutes of pure emotion. Listening to it for the first time as darkness fell caused me to shed copious tears. An unmistakable romantic touch is given by the violin insert and the tearing recited verses at the end of the song, reminiscent of the golden period of romantic-hued gothic metal: that of Tristania and Theatre Of Tragedy, although the Italian combo, unlike the two Norwegian bands, focuses more on a spectrum of purely masculine emotions. The woman (seen as a bewitching demon, a typical cliché of goth imagery) is however the main theme of the fourth track "The virgin whore", slightly more canonical than the rest of the compositions but with a really beautiful chorus, where the clean vocals become slightly more resounding. The piano is the absolute protagonist in "In adoration of the weeping skies" and initially accompanies the recitation of elegiac lines, followed by the eruption of a sharp scream and another wonderful guitar solo. The accumulated tension spills over into a few seconds of pure black metal, only to make room again for the narrative voice (this time angry) and find the piano and a tear-jerking violin (really reminiscent of the work done by Pete Johannsen on "Widow's weeds" as well as some passages by Haggard) at the end. In the next two tracks, the keyboards timidly sketch romantic and bucolic scenarios that stand out wonderfully above the guitar walls created by Hypnos and Amon 418.

The true protagonist of "Black Bible" this time is the voice, delivering a truly powerful growl, as the other elements of the sound, which previously knew how to make some rather long passages exciting, perhaps here were not calibrated at best. A separate discussion should be made for the violin, once again worthy of a spine-chilling passage. And then comes, like a bolt from the blue, the eighth track "A gothic ghost - The dead of all beauty". And it is the triumph of the romantic and gothic atmosphere that elegantly caressed us in the previous songs. Impossible to hold back tears at those violin melodies. I felt my heart bleed, and the same indescribable emotion felt listening to that gothic music masterpiece I mentioned earlier made its way with the same impulsive strength, making me fall in love with this song, which leaves us with a spoken dialogue: the moving goodbye between two lovers. Halfway between "Velvet darkness they fear" (for the elegance of the keyboard sounds and the male voice at the beginning of the song) and the early Cradle Of Filth is the subsequent "Garden of fairies".

The album ends with two beautiful covers. The first, "The fairy feller's master-stroke / Nevermore" by Queen, offers (especially in the second, more melodic part) a slightly antithetical atmosphere to the twilight motifs of the other songs, but in the end, it is a successful episode, in which the umpteenth superb performance of Bless on the keyboards is sealed. An unexpected guest makes an appearance on the last track. Yes, it's her, the Venus of Gothic Metal: Liv Kristine. I can only express my admiration for the singer's flair, who was able to lend her voice to a great reality like Cradle Of Filth, but also managed to embellish a hidden little gem like this album, thanks to a splendid metal reinterpretation of one of the masterpieces by Dead Can Dance: "Summoning of the muse". A note of merit also goes to the beautiful album cover, reminiscent of Friedrichian masterpieces and conceived in full romantic style.

The intrinsic strength of Hortus Anime's music perhaps lies in the geographical origin of the same members and the desire to distinguish it, without emulating the Scandinavian or American band of the moment. A typically Italian modus operandi and emotionality are indeed components that link many underground realities of our country. Who knows if, with their own hands, in the future, bands like Domina Noctis, Mandragora Scream, Amethista, Edenshade, Dark Lunacy, Novembre, and the same Hortus Animae will succeed in diverting the world's attention from the revered Lacuna Coil and Rhapsody, attracting more notice. If, for once, even Italian metal music listeners took off their blinders, certain realities would gain greater prominence.