VARIOUS ARTISTS
Contaminated 3.0

I'm cold, tired, and I have a terrible headache; I've just finished my well-over-an-hour weekly session with my psychologist friend. And today was an even more dramatic journey back in time, venturing into the dark and deep recesses of my mind. In a way it had never happened before. Barbara took my hand, supported me; she screamed multiple times, "stay there, remember and let out everything you see." I followed her advice to the letter and finally see the end of the tunnel, the light, the hope. I immediately thought of a Husker Du record, "New Day Rising"... Music, my Music, my salvation.

I head to my car to drive back home, and I already have the CD ready that will accompany me on the thirty-minute drive it will take to cross the threshold of my home, up in the heights of Domodossola. It's always been this way: when I need to "exorcise" a negative situation, only the most extreme and heavy Metal has this sublime power over my twisted and complicated mind. Enough, now let's talk about the album.

A double compilation from the American record label "Relapse Records," which released this time bomb in January 2001, brutally celebrating ten years since its founding in 1990 in Colorado. The label represents the Stars and Stripes answer to the European dominance of the "enemy" "Nuclear Blast" and "Earache Records," the two labels that have most contributed to the spread of Death Metal and generally of sound extremism in the form of heavy metal.

Fifty-one tracks across about forty engaged bands; over two and a half hours of raw, violent assault. But I already mentioned I don't have much time, especially because "traffic is slow during rush hour" (Oh, my Lucio!): I will have to choose a maximum of ten songs. No doubt, I have a precise setlist in mind to follow. And so, let's go, starting with the first CD.

I chose Incantation and the six abyssal minutes of "Sempiternal Pandemonium"; penetrating, infested death-doom that seems to come from the underworld. But today the dark abyss no longer scares me, and I smile with satisfaction while that frightening growl accompanies my first kilometers, with a light rain starting to fall. I skip a track and get to Nasum and their very brief grindcore outburst "Old And Tired": the most legitimate offspring of Napalm Death, without a doubt; more grindcore passing by the inhumane Agoraphobic Nosebleed with two consecutive tracks blasted at light speed. Their execution is so rapid, just a few dozen seconds, that I don't even have the time to recall the titles!! But the headache starts to dissolve. And that's fine then.

Last song of the first CD: Brutal Truth with "Pass Some Down." A concentrate of dynamite that in two minutes incorporates New York-style hardcore with old-school death; insane and crazy-minded (how I relate!).

About halfway there; it's time for the second CD and I'll try to calm myself down with at least a couple of tracks. The Morgion come to my aid, a band unfortunately quickly forgotten, authors of a slow, very slow doom reminiscent of the early work of much better-known bands like Anathema and Paradise Lost. "Nightfall Infernal" is a spiritual journey that fits well with my mental state this gray morning; I stay in the realm of gothic-doom sounds with Amorphis' "In The Beginning"; when they still leaned into their more extreme side, thanks to the growl voice they almost entirely abandoned as their long career progressed.

I enter Domodossola and it's time to start the climb that in five minutes will bring me to my longed-for destination; I only have time for one more track. No doubt, since I'm about to pass by the cemetery of the small Hamlet where I reside. "House By The Cemetery" by the monstrous Mortician; you can't understand a single syllable of the singing, with sounds so raw and low they're unlistenable: but what a delight, especially today.

I was perfect in my choice of tracks and timing: I park as Mortician is concluding their sonic devastation. The headache is gone, and now I'm no longer cold. I have started to ascend the forty stone steps, I'm at the top; I open the gate and the door.

Here I am, I've arrived home; I'm greeted by a warm and familiar embrace. I'm happy.

To Barbara, first and foremost a friend.