Memories Of A Lost Soul
Son Of My Satanic Creation

The debut of a band is always important. Usually, many fans of the early era reject later works in favor of the straightforwardness and freshness of ideas that each formation, in its own way, always possesses at the beginning. This is certainly not the case with these four guys from Reggio since their career still spans only 10 years, and they haven’t had the chance to blow it, partly due to the environment they operate in and the genre they propose. To tell the truth (and those who know them will support this thesis), their works following this one have always been an escalation of compositional novelty, which has recently led them to publish a full-length that possesses a maturity that is definitely (and clearly) remarkable compared to this first work.

In 1997, we were already in the full era where it was very fashionable to play black metal or Swedish death metal, and MOALS were no exception. However, for them, something made the difference: being among the first and standing out in a country where, especially in the far south (something I can assure you from direct experience), it is not easy to get noticed. It is astonishing how sometimes we are willing to go overseas to seek the most unthinkable groups, when we have talents right under our noses, here, in our beautiful Italy, the Italy of Sanremo and all those losers that I will not bother to list.

This little work represents a milestone in our underground, and it was also highly regarded abroad (mainly in France), consisting of songs that were raw yet already displayed (and those who noticed it, have not been proven wrong to this day) a certain artistic independence and a great technical ability, both instrumental and compositional, for young individuals who at the time had an average age of around 20 years. It's true, At The Gates clones already existed, but in Italy, they were not many, and especially not everyone was equally able to propose new songs, mainly in intent and songwriting, since the genre had already been invented.

The listener will face only 6 tracks, recorded somewhat poorly due to limited means, but the freshness and breeze of our local underground metal from those years will overshadow these aspects. Guitars that are soft at times and sharp in other situations, fast tempos but also very paced parts with melodic clean guitar arpeggios, riffing typical of death with Swedish roots and at times vaguely thrashy, a low and somewhat hoarse voice that is very different from today.

These, in summary, are the main features of a demo that presented a band that already had clear ideas on what to do, and especially how. It's curious at times to hear the skin of the snare drum vibrating while the guitar arpeggio, a sign of the genuineness of the live recording. The atmospheres are dark, in contrast to their place of origin, but the melodic component is already very pronounced and even after many years this demo CD does not fail to excite the listener who lived through those years and knew the band watching it progress. I would be hesitant to recommend this as the first listen of MOALS for the aforementioned characteristics, but if you like the later works, this is something you cannot miss listening to, and, despite all the 'perplexed little men,' since it was the only missing piece in their discography on this site I have reviewed it.