The Black
Abbatia Scl. Clementis

"Abbatia Scl. Clementis" was recorded in 1992 and is the second full-length album by The Black.

The story of mastermind Mario Di Donato, as mentioned on other occasions, starts from afar, even from the seventies. After shelving the Unreal Terror and Requiem experiences, Di Donato was able to amaze at the end of the eighties (it was 1989) with the mini album "Reliquarium," the first act of the new project The Black, crafting a metal with an experimental flair, characterized by free guitar work (between heavy metal, doom, and progressive) and chanting recited in Latin: a metal paying homage to the seventies and eighties traditions (Black Sabbath and Judas Priest are the names that come to mind most), but permeated by unsettling dark visions and a mysticism that immediately associated Di Donato's name with those of the protagonists of the great Italian dark-metal tradition (Antonio Bartoccetti and Paolo Catena in particular).

A path fully realized with the first official album of the band, that "Infernus, Purgatorium et Paradisus" (from 1991), a metallic reinterpretation of Dante Alighieri's "Divina Commedia," which to this day is considered one of the major masterpieces (if not THE masterpiece) of Di Donato's career.

"Abbatia Scl. Clementis" refines the approach and delivers a more compact sound oriented towards physical impact: the doom component is significantly scaled down, while the dark suggestions survive in a couple of instrumental interludes (dominated by keyboards alone) and in Di Donato's lyrics, still in Latin.

It's obvious that Di Donato's approach is always very personal, and it's no coincidence that the album's title is inspired by a visit to the Abbey of St. Clement in Casauria, demonstrating how the artist from Abruzzo remains firmly connected to the artistic and cultural heritage of his land (remember that Di Donato is also a painter): "The mystical and historical air surrounding it," explains Di Donato, "seems to evoke the alternating events experienced between wealth, devastation, reconstructions, splendor, and decay." [...] "From these marbles and stones," continues the author, "I took many phrases in Latin, and I inserted them into the lyrics of the songs of this work with the intent to underline the orientation of the 'THE BLACK' project always inclined to blend Italian art/dark metal."

Let's move on to the album's contents, eight tracks for just half an hour of music: alongside Di Donato, we find Enio Nicolini on bass, who already played in Unreal Terror and has accompanied the friend in his musical adventure to this day. Behind the drums sits new entry Emilio Chella, whose precise and relentless drumming heavily influences the fate of an album that, as mentioned at the beginning, sounds less doom and much more heavy, at times even brushing the shores of the most schizophrenic thrash metal (early Megadeth, to be clear), obviously an archaic thrash illuminated by Di Donato's guitar flair, excellent as always, but that seems to have less room for improvisation, confining itself to a song format retrieved for the occasion.

So, a less visionary and experimental album, yet increasingly solid on rigorous traditional tracks influenced by a certain German power metal of which Emilio Chella himself was directly an interpreter within the German band Keenig.

Therefore, the first part of the album moves along the coordinates of fast-paced tracks dominated by Di Donano's sharp guitar work and Chella's double-bass drumming. The Abruzzese artist's personality still emerges through the oblique openings of his guitar (which occasionally, between one rocky riff and another, finds ancient inspiration, especially in solos or song introductions) and through a Latin recitation that blends well with abrasive tracks rich in tempo changes. All these elements can be easily found in the first four songs "Voraginis" (opened by the piano), the violent "Missa Est," the sinuous "Rex Inferi," and the earth-shattering "Mater Immortalis"). It's worth highlighting the high technical level expressed by the three musicians.

The second part of the work is even better, opening with the gloomy evolutions of the organ in "Post Communio": the following tracks are a welcome return to a more typical "The Black" style, without, however, touching the hallucinatory mysticism that permeated (and will permeate) the band's other works. In any case, the title track is a great piece, surely among the best ever written by Di Donato, and its catchy chorus (shattered by Chella's apocalyptic double pedal) brings the Abruzzese's music back to that atmosphere of dark epicness that made his name a prominent one in the tricolor heavy metal scene. The rhythms slow further with the dark "Testamentus," the longest episode and most closely linked to the doom tradition. The driving "Oremus" closes the performance, a delirious revisitation of the heavy sound tested with the album's first tracks.

So, while we end up noting the weakening of the evocative power typical of Di Donato's artistic vision on one hand, on the other, we can't help but chuckle contentedly at a good heavy metal album, yes classic, but one that shines brightly with the signature of one of the greatest authors of Italian metal.