Subrosa
More Constant Than The Gods

Have you ever killed someone? Ever pissed in holy water? Pretended to go pick up your aunt at the station and then detoured through the woods to check if the virgin from the night before was properly impaled by those satanic troglodytes of your friends? Eh? Or does your concept of originality consist of having tea with Cesara Buonamici and using sweetener instead of sucrose? What's that? You prefer natural sweeteners? Then you can close this right here and go online to look at photos of Chiara Francini dancing burlesque. They will make you a better person.

Because the (or rather the) SubRosa are among the boldest groups to emerge from the American scene. I still have to catch up on their debut ''Strega'' from 2008 (and who knows if I ever will) but the subsequent ''No Help for the Mighty Ones'' was already a small gem of modern and contaminated metal, straddling between sludge harshness and psychedelic suggestions. The present ''More Constant Than The Gods'', released a few months ago, is simply one of the most fascinating albums I've listened to in recent times. It's always gratifying to come across a band like this, especially in areas notoriously rooted in the past, that defies every classification, with an alluring and very personal sound where the guitars sometimes draw from the more metallized post-rock of various Pelican and Russian Circle, other times instead they are tinged with genuine doom, while Rebecca Vernon's voice, in more relaxed moments, winks at a certain American dream pop.

It seems to come in just right on time. Finally, an almost all-female doom band (which at least eliminates the recent obsession with hair by Nes). I know very well of your libidinous attraction to a number of things that are exclusive to the fairer sex, like Chiara Francini's giant breasts, Chiara Francini's enormous bosom, or Chiara Francini's disproportionate mammaries... 

To tell the truth, I also tried to introduce the band to my Chiara Francini, who is not an actress at all and has stretches of plainness in front that not even the West Siberian Plain can match. But she didn't like them at all. And I kept telling her - ''What do you mean!! They sound like Neurosis with the singer of Amesouers locked in a basement for 20 years listening to The 3rd & The Mortal and drinking expired Irish Whiskey!'' - And she - ''What a suspense! Let’s listen then...'' - only to end up disgusted, much like the retired great-uncle who claims to hold his liquor but ends up puking on the table already by the Christmas Eve appetizers, after having grabbed your mother-in-law’s butt and almost coming to blows with your sister's husband over whether Jonathan was really a soccer player or just Carlton from ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' without hair.

Oh well... could not care less. She can go and rewatch the fourth season of The Walking Dead for the one hundred thirty-second time, smoothing the arc to Daryl the brooding, while I meanwhile sign up for more female quotas in the medal.

Anyway... to understand us a bit better: Salt Lake City, cold inside, Profound Lore, smoky and esoteric riffing in full Electric Wizard style, twilight folk textures à la Current 93 and Dead Can Dance; surreal and inextricable violin lines (two) for futurist neo-psychedelic triumph, pain/desolation/melancholy in the lyrics. Noise and melody. Buzz and nuances. Experimental stonerrific doom.

Said nothing.

Do you have a few spare minutes in your life? Everyone has them, come on...like when you're on the toilet, don't know what to do, and start flipping through the gossip magazines of your mother (with Chiara Francini winning the swimsuit contest) or the Bible, only to discover that you’ve run out of toilet paper and realize that the letters to the Corinthians aren't only good for rolling paper. So, tomorrow morning, for example, take advantage of it; to the usual three C's post wake-up add an S: that of scopophilia.

Or rather no. That of SubRosa