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“With “Mad(e) In Italy,” we wanted to give a twist to our genre, looking more closely at our country, its sounds, and its more or less unconsciously mafioso culture. The world is full of clichés, and every nation is tied to a particular iconography. We have the triptych of “pizza, Mafia, and mandolin.” We started from here to create this new work of ours, which combines the violence of death metal with the allure of the mandolin... The result is at least unusual! New Italian death metal family coming.”
These are the first words from the Abruzzese band No More Fear regarding their third album, “Mad(e) In Italy.” Words that, after listening to it, I fully confirm: this record is truly unique and at the same time absolutely valid. Sixteen years of a hard-fought career have made this combo a valid representative of the Italian death metal scene, with the right amount of experience behind them and two albums that have little to do with what is released nowadays. These five musicians began with a concept that is far from simple to develop: incorporating Italian folklore into their sound, further expanding the discourse in the lyrics, which relate to all those negative aspects that distinguish us worldwide. Moving on to an analysis of “Mad(e) In Italy,” we can say that what surprises the most is definitely its sonic side: within each song, we find a series of atypical instruments such as mandolin, gewa, bouzouki, and marranzano, elements that give a very particular edge to the death metal proposed by No More Fear. It would be all too easy to say that these musicians have dared too much, but fundamentally, it is not at all so: in this album, everything has its reason, and their way of operating has allowed a breath of fresh air into their proposition. Listen to “Taranthell” or “Don Gaetano,” songs that carefully alternate aggression with gentle rhythms.
As with any concept album worth its salt, the lyrics also follow the main thread, harshly addressing the dark sides of Italy from the post-war period to today. Available in a beautiful digipack version, “Mad(e) In Italy” stands as one of the best Italian death metal releases of 2012.
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