Spite Extreme Wing
Magnificat

Argento, voice and pen of the Ligurian band Spite Estreme Wing, is the greatest intellectual of the Italian extreme scene: or at least he likes to think so. Texts, interviews, and statements suggest quite the opposite, but we like to believe him, and following his refined monologues, we agree with Paolo Vidmar (of the magazine Grind Zone) in judging Non Ducor, Duco "an album that will remain in the annals for various reasons".

In that album, the good Argento achieved the longed-for synthesis between "Esoteric Traditionalism" and "National Revolutionary Combatism", experimenting in music with true and pure "Archeofuturism" (obviously the quotes are his).

Thanks to that album and the promotional interviews, we finally know that "if Christianity had not won, most of Europe would worship Mithra" and that "This is not about turning from side to side in a bed of agony, but about waking up and standing up! SI SPIRITUS PRO NOBIS, QUIS CONTRA NOS?"

Before becoming a thinker of such depth, our Argento carried forward two parallel projects: he released two albums with the gore-metal band Antropofagus (brilliant!), and wrote about twenty songs for this black metal project, Spite Estreme Wing: most of these will end up on this "Magnificat", the remaining, re-recorded in a Romanesque church with a vague death patina, will compose the recent "Kosmokrator (Magnificat pt. 2)".

"Magnificat" is not the most coherent and cohesive album, composed as it is of songs recorded in different sessions, with different productions and mixing; it is not even his best, a title probably taken by the third "Kosmokrator": but it comes from a period when Argento's pen was in a state of grace, producing some of the best chapters of his discography; in this first album, every intellectualism is missing, every attempt to indoctrinate the listener, every pseudo-philosophical speculation.

The style of the group firmly remains within the Scandinavian field, given the leader's predilection for this scene: on one hand, the songs have that melodic and majestic stride of much Norwegian black, suspended between dream and reality, on the other, the rhythm section, the guitar roughness, and a certain violent approach position the group also in the Swedish vein: the result is a composite style, not original, but fundamentally successful and captivating, rendered more engaging by the high technical level of the musicians (Rigel on drums and Azoth on bass and keyboards, in addition to Argento, voice and guitar).

What might make listening more difficult is the fragmentation of the album at the level of recordings: the album, released in 2003, is essentially composed of 4 sections, recorded at as many different times. The best is undoubtedly the initial one (from the second demo "Arcano Incanto"): after an evocative introduction ("L'Inizio") it moves to the triptych "Acqua di fonte di gloria - La stirpe Divina - Reminiscenza di illusione lunare...", one of the 3-4 best things that extreme music has produced in Italy at least in the last ten years: the melodic nuances make these three tracks, sung in Italian, something particularly engaging, unique, and significant. The warlike turn that SEW's music took with "Non Ducor, Duco" seems unnecessary to me since the epic of which one has need is encapsulated in these three songs, not a note less.

The tracks from the other sections remain on the same coordinates, if possible extreme the proposal, faster, more brutal, rawer. But the melodic pauses also stand out, entrusted to entirely instrumental tracks like "La favola di Ermafrodito (parte I)", an acoustic gem, and "Viaggio di ritorno", a long keyboard suite, between Burzum-like suggestions and more reflective and warm moments. This alternation between black metal and more intimate moments could rightly be cataloged as Occult black metal, the most underrepresented sub-genre in the history of extreme music, of which SEW may be the most authoritative representatives.

An essential album to understand the evolution of the Italian scene.