The dramatically unconventional Italian band Laetitia in Holocaust haven’t quite reached the quarter-century mark of their existence, but they’re not too far away. In that time they’ve created a discography that is a cavalcade of aggressive surprises, and their latest addition is a forthcoming fifth album (not counting an early album-length demo). Entitled Fanciulli D’Occidente, it will be released by the Dusktone label on May 31st, and we’re premiering it in full today.
The album’s name translates to “Children of the West”, and we’re told that conceptually it’s intended as a memoriam to ancestors of European peoples and a wish that today’s children may prove themselves worthy of blood shed by those long-gone predecessors. It would seem to connect to the band’s own name, which stands for “happiness in sacrifice”.
With passing time it has become increasingly difficult to sum up the music of LIH in pithy genre terms, and in the case of Fanciulli D’Occidente it’s no easier to do that. Black metal and progressive metal provide a warping framework for the album’s seven songs. Morphing fretless-bass maneuvers, surprising and technically impressive instrumental acrobatics, and strangely mutating vocals are also notable features of all the songs.
Aggressiveness is a further recurring feature of the music. European history up to the present day, like the history of the world entire, is riddled with warfare and drenched in blood, and so it’s fitting that Fanciulli D’Occidente is marked by episodes of musical conflict rendered in bursts of assaulting drums, blaring and blazing blasts of assaulting sound, blistering and abrading guitar arpeggios, and crazed howls.
But in many ways all these features are the tip of a very large iceberg. Intertwined through that warping black metal and prog framework you’ll find mystical and classically influenced orchestration, brief chamber-music contributions, trumpet-like fanfares, rippling and xylophone-like keys, soaring synths, delicate acoustic guitar accents drawing from different regional traditions, whirling dervish-like fiddles, jazz-like woodwind instrumentation, dramatic changes in drum patterns and styles (including vivid conga- and bongo-like rhythms), a multitude of electric-guitar tones, and explosions of fretwork pyrotechnics.
(To be clear, we won’t really know what instruments were actually used to create these rich tapestries of sound, only what they sound like — and the album sounds like the work of dozens of people, which is a testament to the remarkable array of talents among the probably smaller group of participants who actually made the record.)
You’ll also repeatedly encounter (with no warning) startling contrasts in tempo, volume, degrees of intricacy, and mood, which collectively make these songs truly head-spinning. With respect to mood, the music traverses experiences of turmoil and confusion, of dreams and hallucinations, of musing introspection, of fear and fortitude, of jubilant exhilaration and deranged delirium.
And to return to the vocals, they include not only ragged throat-scraping snarls and wild strangled yells but also throat singing, gritty spoken pronouncements, ugly gagging expulsions, and haunting gasps and wails.
In attempting to grapple with genre influences in this truly baroque music, we’ve already mentioned black metal, prog metal and prog rock, jazz (of more than one kind, including “Big Band” stylings), classical music, and even Afro-Cuban beats, but should also mention psychedelia and folk — among others.
So yes indeed, this music is so extravagantly elaborate and varied that there really is no easy way to sum it up — and that is precisely what makes it so stunning. To ponder the amount of thought that went into conceiving the songs and mapping their course, and the amount of finely-tuned work that went into performing them and recording them with such clarity without sacrificing aggressiveness, is itself stunning to contemplate.
Let’s just say it might be the most remarkable album this writer has encountered so far this year (or in many years). It’s very easy to become wholly absorbed by what’s happening, to be wholly caught up in what seems like a grand celebration or richly adorned pageant.
Undoubtedly, it’s so idiosyncratic and generally bamboozling that it won’t appeal to everyone, but for those with open minds and willing ears, it’s a hell of an experience. Discover for yourselves now:
Dusktone will release Fanciulli D’Occidente in a jewel-case CD edition with an 8-page booklet, as well as digitally, along with apparel. They recommend it for fans of Ved Buens Ende, later Spite Extreme Wing, “or the mighty Mayhem in their Grand Declaration Of War vibes”.
For more info, check the links below.
PRE-ORDER:
https://dusktone.bandcamp.com/album/fanciulli-d-occidente
https://www.dusktone.it/
LAETITIA IN HOLOCAUST:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100042679674458
https://www.instagram.com/laetitia_in_holocaust/
https://laetitiainholocaust1.bandcamp.com/album/heritage