Mountainscape
Iridescent

THE REVIEW

Saturday, June 8, 7:30 AM

The weather conditions are not the best, but it doesn't matter. Today I absolutely must reach Alpe Veglia, a splendid, superb alpine basin among my favorite destinations here. I start from Ponte Campo, at 1300 meters altitude, and climb the tough, at times very tough, slopes that in just under an hour bring me to today's destination. Suddenly, this authentic wonder of nature opens up, and every time I am engulfed by immense shivers for the solemn majesty of what surrounds me. Altitude 1750, a lot of snow still present beyond 2000 meters; on the border line with Switzerland, the Terrarossa, the Punta del Rebbio, the Pizzo Mottiscia...but the solemn moment has not yet arrived...a few hundred more meters, I cross a wooden bridge and stop essentially at the center of the plain. Total silence, no one else but me...I stop and at this point, I can again raise my eyes...

Believe it or not, I'm struggling to continue writing...my eyes are tearful...because in front of me stands the giant of Veglia, the queen peak: Monte Leone with its enormous granite wall covered by meters of white splendor. I take a photo that I posted on yesterday's listens, and I can only think of the English Mountainscape and their newly released album Iridescent: the same magnetic intensity, the same solemn depth...I remain for a few minutes "in a daze," as if hypnotized by what I see in front of me...

...now I should be ready to talk about the album...

There is truly everything in the third album by the Albionic: Instrumental Post-Metal, Black Metal, Doom, Sludge, wide-ranging Ambient transitions. Disconcerting in the endless changes of register, in the execution timings within the same track as masterfully occurs in "Belonging" that opens the album: a few electro-acoustic notes whispered from afar for three minutes, on tiptoe. But for those like me who already know the band's previous works, it's well known that this calm can't last long...and, indeed, the tempestuous storm begins, the assault of a Post-Shoegaze heaviness very closely related to the French Alcest starts. The colors become purplish, as in the cover image; the instruments battle with each other, proceed quickly, compactly, creating an emotional tension of legend. "Towering Monoliths" is emblematic right from the chosen title: ten minutes of Sludge-Doom of dire dramatic nature. Time flows and after a slow start, everything elevates, the guitar becomes the absolute protagonist with sunny strikes that hit you directly, bleeding slashes that do not want to relent until the end: cathartic and monumental...

There are only three other songs, and this is in my opinion the only flaw of a work that indeed lasts only 42 minutes: really too short for such high-quality Music that I will never tire of listening to and appreciating.

Album of 2024? For now, certainly, and it will be difficult to come close...

One more thing: for detractors of the genre, I recommend listening at a volume to "bring down entire buildings" to the final minutes building up of "Astrium"...I won't add anything else...

Ad Maiora.