Inchiuvatu
Piccatu

Let's admit it! The greenhouse effect and the rise of global temperature is a real tragedy, but for us metalheads, it's something apocalyptic. We seriously risk seeing all the northern flora disappear, along with a certain typical landscape so dear to a particular black-metal iconography.

One of the most impressive effects of this climatic phenomenon is the speed at which changes occur, as grave as they are palpable. Until a few years ago around here, in winter I saw children playing snowball fights, this year in January I saw them playing with dates.

The advancing desertification will see palm trees and prickly pears replace conifers on black album covers? It certainly seems so! Could this also influence the very structure of black? Very likely!

But to be sure, there's no better occasion than listening to an album that anticipates the times. A forward-thinking black album, a black that is already played as it will be in 10 years, that is... at 40 degrees in the shade. Inchiuvatu can give us the answers we seek, offering us a true Sicilian black coming from almost tropical latitudes, quite different from those we are used to.

This one-man-band is the work of the versatile artist Agghiastru, originally from Sciacca which is a fjord of Agrigento (or Agriggendo according to the Italian/Totò Cuffaro vocabulary). His recipe is to blend black and Sicilian folklore, which at first approach might seem the classic musical mess resulting from "little but confused" inspiration; in reality, Agghiastru manages to make sounds so geographically distant coexist with a skilled dosage and the result is a black of seductive malevolence.

The Norwegian-style black of "Piccatu" released in 2004, is not denatured but enriched with Mediterranean contaminations. The mainstay is always and only black, but sounds of flutes, accordion, piano (a beloved instrument by Agghiastru) both keys and barrel (sic!), chants, nursery rhymes of ancient pagan beliefs, give it an evil aura with strong macaronic shades more familiar to our Italian ears compared to the typical Nordic ice-pop/black.

Another treat: the singing in Sicilian dialect. "Cunsumu", "Piccatu", "Animacula", "Vattiu", "Ciuri Sacrificatu", "Curu'", are some of the track titles that you will undoubtedly never hear pronounced in Lapland. For such audacity, some black purist might scream in horror! But how??? The sacred Norse language of Odin replaced by a plebeian and above all southern Sicilian dialect???? Well... aside from the fact that I find the choice of dialect perfectly fitting and damn "true," the singing is in screaming, so Agghiastru could also sing in Thai, the result wouldn't change, it is simply always the same hysterical, raucous, incomprehensible and freaking screaming.

Finally a black album that isn't cookie-cutter, finally a black album that can be distinguished from the first to the last note. Finally a clear and exhaustive answer to what the evolution of black will be. A black that forcefully breaks through the anachronistic northern ice inevitably destined to melt under an infernal sun.

A single voice will unite the black of the future in the cry of: MIEZZECAAAA!!!!

STAY POWER BUT ALSO STAY "ANTO'...IT'S HOT!"