Sadness
Ames de Marbre

This is not canonical metal that you will hear with the first and best album by the Swiss band Sadness. No epic solos, no technicalities or other tricks, but neither the bone-crushing speed of genres like Grind/Death/Black.

What exactly our guys proposed, I'll write it with frankness, is not well defined.

Ex roadies of Celtic Frost, heavily influenced by their music (and the legendary "Into The Pandemonium”), the guys also show a certain "satanic" attitude à la Bathory. I mean the less fast and gloomier ones. What, however, strikes and stuns, is the evident tribute paid by the band to New Wave formations like Joy Division, Bauhaus, and Christian Death.

Usually, I don't love the crossover between Darkwave and Extreme Metal. Too many have been the cases of authentic tear-jerking kitsch. But don’t despair: here we are light years away from those who wanted to transpose the sound of Dead Can Dance onto metallic ground (I think of bombed-out groups like Theatre of Tragedy) or that of the Nephilim (especially Moonspell and Tiamat).

Here we find ourselves in an untouched land, made of nocturnal beauty. A virgin soil where seemingly so distant genres manage to hold hands.

In “Ames De Marbre” the sadness is felt in every single note and blends well with the occasional metal accelerations. The voice is not a scream but neither is it melodic. Perhaps a genuine cry of pain that, from time to time, aims at low and even recited tones. There are also female vocalizations that manage to imprint on the whole a tone very similar to that of “Into The Pandemonium” by the already mentioned, and not by chance, Celtic Frost.

After “Ames De Marbre” two not very convincing chapters followed, and then the sad end of a band that, believe me, with just one album managed to say a lot but also to tell all the well-known “gothic trash” to go to hell.

An obligatory listen.