(written by Islander)
Over the course of two previous albums the Italian band LaColpa have musically and lyrically elaborated their philosophy of pain, “deeply rooted in the human condition of eternal suffering,” through “different stratifications of sonic nightmares.”
I’ve quoted there from the introduction provided by Brucia Records to LaColpa‘s recently announced third album, In Absentia Lucis. The label also describes the album as “a pitch-black magma of suffering in music, combining Sludge, Doom and Dissonant Black Metal with some of the most painful soundscapes of improvisational Noise and Drone.” Regarding the new record’s thematic focus, they say:
After having explored themes like guilt, awareness of own mortality and the condition of pain which inevitably grips our existence, In Absentia Lucis closes the circle by bringing back the reflection on our own condition of impotence.
We are lost in the immense solitude of our Ego, masters of Nothing.
We are the Lords of Nothingness.
Lost in Our Vast Loneliness.
Band photos by Boris Carbone
In Absentia Lucis is unquestionably a harrowing and haunting experience, but while the perpetual submergence of humanity in suffering is a core theme, listening to the album is not a test of endurance, nor the infliction of unmitigated suffering on the listener. Instead, it is fascinating, unorthodox but wholly absorbing, and very difficult to forget. We have a prime example of why this is so in the song we’re premiering today.
That song, “Where God Lives,” is one of four tracks on In Absentia Lucis, three of them longer than usual, which collectively run for about 36 minutes. Here’s the track list:
1 Our Vast Loneliness (10:53)
2 Lords of Nothingness (8:00)
3 Nothing is True (5:40)
4 Where God Lives (10:42)
And here is how LaColpa explain the meaning of the track you’re about to hear:
“Where God Lives” explores the theme of spiritual search and the desire to transcend the material void that surrounds us, to have a purpose, to have an ultimate goal. In search of the place where God resides, the reflection of men inevitably emerges. One realizes that it is impossible to find God without recognizing that the very idea of God is a justification created by human beings to deal with that Void that they cannot tolerate. God was created by men to make men feel like God.
The song is nearly nearly 11 minutes long. It’s a paradigm example of a long song that can make you lose track of time. It does that by inducing an extremely strange and unsettling kind of dream state — not a soporific experience at all, but a perplexing yet still mesmerizing one.
By the end you might want to shake yourself like a wet dog, and try to make sense of what the hell just happened to you. Equally likely, you might just want to start it again, maybe even figure out how to put it on a loop and let the day disappear.
At first, dim and eerie swirls of sound meander above what sounds like gasping breaths and the crackle of an old phonograph record trying to begin or end. The bass begin to quietly hum; the drums start to clatter and thump; piercing guitar tones flicker and writhe, like the onset of a brain fever; a ragged voice snarls, wails, and gags, already parted from the moorings of sanity.
Those high-toned guitars begin to throb, in a tone like knives scraping sheet metal, and then convulse along with the rhythm section, creating electric sensations of broiling and roiling madness and avalanche upheaval.
One guitar blares like a siren; another furiously whips through seizure-like contortions, and then seems to slowly peal like a dissonant bell of misery and confusion. Voices may be screaming within all those surreal high-frequency expressions.
The combined effect is hallucinatory; even the heavy murmurings of the bass sound strange. The drum dutifully plods along, encompassed by riots of instrumental dementia, and then gives out. Strange tinkling tones flicker, and then the song loops back around to how it began.
LACOLPA:
Andrea Moio: bass
Cecco Testa: synth, noise, samples
Davide Boeri: drums
Davide Destro: guitars & effects
Mario Olivieri: vocals
In Absentia Lucis was mixed by Dano Battocchio, and mastered by James Plotkin. The cover artwork and illustrations are by Rossella Ciarmoli (Lacrimae Rerum).
Brucia Records will release the album on December 19th on digital and a special slipcase CD edition containing a 12-page booklet. They recommend it for fans of Thaw, Abruptum, and Coil.
PRE-ORDER:
https://store.bruciarecords.com/product/lacolpa-in-absentia-lucis-brucia-cd-sludge-noise
LACOLPA:
https://linktr.ee/lacolpa
https://lacolpa666.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/LaColpa666
