Inchiuvatu
Addisiu

Today I want to dust off one of the most original albums released in the Metal scene here in Italy in the nineties, namely "Addisiu" by the Sicilian Inchiuvatu, an album that was brought to life by the genius mind of Agghiastru in 1997.

After many years since the release of this album, one realizes how it was one of the highest peaks of an entire musical genre, that black metal born in the early nineties in Norway, which mixed the fury of the fastest and most extreme thrash metal with the local folk tradition, and indeed "Addisiu" is a kind of reinterpretation of the genre in a Sicilian key, as every track is entirely sung in Sicilian dialect and full of folkloric sounds typical of southern Italy.

These characteristics alone would certainly be enough to arouse curiosity, but what truly makes this album unique and original is everything that distances it from any other album of the genre to which it owes, indeed it would be reductive to speak of "Addisiu" as an Italian Black metal album given the variety of styles encountered during listening. The entire work ranges from folk to classical, ending even in new wave, a genre with which the album is imbued from beginning to end. The atmosphere is fairy-tale and surreal, thanks to particular and successful lyrics; indeed the entire album is a kind of concept about desire, set in "Lu jaddinu di lu piaciri", a magical place where all the pleasures of earthly life meet.

Among the tracks that struck me the most are: "Ave matri", a suggestive song that tells of the Virgin Mary fleeing from paradise to experience sexual pleasures, a piece with a dark atmosphere centered on the desire for love; "Addisiu", a theatrical and poetic track, the most beautiful and intense of the entire work, and "Cristu Crastu", the fiercest of all, where there is a small part sung in English mockingly and a crazy surprise ending, almost highlighting the absurdity of human existence.

No Black metal album has the poetry and complexity of "Addisiu", here we are facing music with no mental closure and bursting with ideas, totally opposite to bands like Mayhem, Marduk, and Cradle of Filth. Indeed, I am not surprised by his latest solo projects, totally different from Inchiuvatu and closer to a singer-songwriter style, after listening to an album as completely insane and original as this.