Professor Fate
The Inferno

A powerful monument, a compendium of medieval civilization, and the highest monument of poetry is Dante's Commedia, a writer and intellectual whose stature would be significant even without this poem. Just consider that with Vita Nova, he offers the first example of an "autobiographical" novel in our literature. In Convivio, he creates the essayistic prose in the vernacular, and with De vulgari eloquentia provides the first treatise on linguistics and literary criticism, culminating in the expressive peak of the Divine Comedy. It is a didactic-allegorical poem in tercets of hendecasyllables with linked rhymes, divided into three canticles (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), each with thirty-three cantos, plus an introduction, totaling one hundred; numbers inspired by medieval mathematical allegory. The poet embarks on a journey through the three realms of the afterlife, to emerge from the "dark forest" into which three beasts, symbols of human vices and the corruption of the time, want to cast him back. Thus, he descends into the infernal cavity, formed in the heart of the Earth when matter recoiled in horror from Lucifer who fell there. He ascends the mount of Purgatory, formed at the antipodes of the recoiled matter, until reaching its summit, the site of terrestrial Paradise, and from there, purified, he moves towards the heavens of Paradise, up to the Empyrean, arriving at the contemplation of the ineffable Divinity. On this mystical pilgrimage, he is guided first by Virgil, representing human reason or philosophy, then by Beatrice, a sign of divine grace or theology. Thus, the Divine Comedy is not only a treasure trove of poetic fragments; it is a mental and moral journey with the great power of storytelling.

Professor Fate is the solo project of Mick Kenney, aka Irrumator of Anaal Nathrakh. It focuses mainly on cinematic-style music inspired by Dante's inferno. The genius of this artist is chilling. The sounds and the exquisite symphonic hues that spread testify to the careful selection of melodies wrapped in the concept. An harmony sprinkled with sweet erroneous principles of stylistic sounds. A delicate external nature drawing artistic creation from the creative malt that timidly breaks the surrounding silence. Hell is a chasm divided into nine concentric circles, where the damned are distributed according to the gravity of the sin committed in life. The sin of incontinence, when reason is overpowered by excessive passion, the sin of malice, the evil action of the human being stripped from his damnation of his violence. The punishment of the damned, the physical torment often heightened by the fierce cruelty of the infernal guardians, mystical monsters, or devils.

"The Gates Of Hell" is the dark and mystical representation of Dante's thought, the concept opens like a gothic march, Gregorian chants frame it, an abyss formed by predominantly Ambient sounds, drawing from electronics, Dark Wave, and exquisite symphonic orchestrations. At the edge of the chasm, in the Ante-Inferno are confined the indifferent, who, stung by gadflies and wasps, chase, without ever stopping, an anonymous banner running ahead of them, shedding blood and tears that are collected by burnt worms at their feet. A great river, the Acheron, separates the Ante-Inferno from the real Inferno; on its outer bank, a multitude of souls, in terror, waits to be irreparably ferried by Charon, a demon with fiery eyes. The first circle is the "Limbo", also the second chapter of the album, where the protagonist is that genius Kristoffer "Germ" Rygg, known to all as the frontman of Ulver. A melancholy piece, his voice accompanies us in the dark dance of the souls of the infernal limbo. The castle is a glimmer of nobility and finesse in the total darkness of this realm of pain, where the penalty overwhelms and debases the human figure. "The Lustful" and "The Gluttonous" are episodes encapsulated in a treasure chest, the arcane "symphonic work" built on compositions predominantly derived from the family of electronics and ambient, which owe much to the masters Ulver. A journey towards mystical horizons, tread by shades of experimentation sought through ingenuity and ability.

"Avarice And Prodigality" is the absolute best paragraph of the album, where orchestration, dark sounds, and sinuous chants extract the intrinsic conceptions of the claustrophobic type of music produced by Mick's mind. A concept of philosophical, literary conception, a hemisphere of colors animating in a Dantean time the figure of his hell.