Inner Shrine
Samaya

Four years after "Fallen Beauty," the third album by our local Inner Shrine is released in 2004 by Dragonhearth.

It's difficult to define the group's style; the most ardent fans of genre classification (here unnecessary) will be satisfied with the label: "Ethereal Gothic Metal". The music presented is very elaborate, detached from any "catchy" solutions, easy, yet at the same time listenable and accessible thanks to a brilliant production and the variety of the pieces: the key tracks are interspersed with many instrumental fragments, between ambient and classical, which serve as a prelude to the five main tracks.

The atmospheres are dark, sometimes somber, but in an intimate and often original way, filled with pathos yet elegant. The album is a slow and gradual departure from traditional Metal, which is reflected thematically in the difficult and arduous path of ascension from Matter to Spirit. As with Lazio's own Void Of Silence with "Human Anthitesis," the third chapter of the concept becomes both synthesis and artistic pinnacle.

The journey begins with the notes of "Overture In Red," a brief instrumental where the slow flow of an oriental-flavored flute begins to generate unease in the listener's soul; a calm and solemn drum roll announces the true beginning of the album: the beautiful: "The Inner Shrine," one of the group's last ventures in the metal realm; a mid-tempo introduces a Gregorian chant with an apocalyptic, solemn, and epic tone, where the Latin lyrics mesh perfectly with the brisk pace of the drum machine and the tight rhythm of the guitars. In the middle, a duet between male and female voices announcing the end of the mortal nature of the Soul and the progressive detachment that will conclude at the album's end.

The following tracks "Path Of Transmigration" and "Res Occulta" are musically similar but have a more complex structure; the first is even embellished with a three-minute mantra sung by a real Tibetan monk. After a poignant and emotional ballad, "Soliloquium In Splendor," sung in English this time by the male voice, the concluding track arrives, the peak and center of the album: "Elegiacus in Re Minore," a piece by pianist Rachmaninov, adapted by the group who adds solo vocals by the soprano singer. It is one of the most evocative moments of a certain cultured way of conceiving Metal: the decision to abandon the choirs that characterized the first part of the album is also a thematic choice: the individual during his journey has distanced himself from society (Gregorian chant was typical of communal religious life) to embrace a monodic chant rich in pathos (actually played by a single pianist).

Even at an iconographic level, Inner Shrine demonstrates their originality, positioning themselves among those Italian groups (Void Of Silence, Aborym, the southern black scene...) that manage to give a domestic character to their productions: starting from the Latin texts, long and intricate "dusty" mantras in the ancestors' language, to the Gregorian chants (the majority of the singing is entrusted to a female soprano), to the Renaissance air that pervades the artwork.

The intellectual side of Leonardo Moretti and Luca Liotti's band is hidden in all these aspects, whose understanding is tacitly entrusted to the reader/listener, without unnecessary display of culture (who said Spite Extreme Wing?). Not a work for a few in a strict sense, but a piece that requires patience to be dissected and assimilated in all its nuances.