Sacro culto

Back in the early nineties I was deeply into the death metal scene, grabbing practically anything with a Dan Seagrave 'landscape from beyond' cover. Yet I also had this penchant for the female voice, and with such limited pickings in the metal genre to satisfy that fetish, I turned to shoegaze, darkwave and goth rock to fill that void. At some point I had developed such an unhealthy obsession with Miki Berenyi from Lush that I once even called out her name like an idiot during a booze-fueled bedroom romp with some chick in what devolved into an ill-fated one night stand. I didn't initially think it was a big deal, as she didn't bring it up afterwards, but it soon dawned on me just before I zonked out that there was likely a good chance that the girl I was with assumed that I had cried out "Mickey!" Needless to say, I was alone when I awoke, facing the knowledge that she probably scuttled off with a deflating suspicion that she had just been used as a vessel for perverted fantasies involving a cartoon mouse or the drummer from The Monkees.

Years later, after a lengthy hiatus from what metal had to offer, thanks to the internet my itch for loud propulsive music bloomed once again, and I soon discovered that a plethora of heavy acts featuring female vocals had been steadily infesting the scene while I was floundering in uppity Nick Cave and Tom Waits worship while sipping red ale. One of the acts that really caught my eye was Opera IX, especially their Sacro Culto album, and not simply for the bold-as-fuck cover sleeve. This was the sort of album I'd been yearning for since I dropped the needle on my first Chastain platter back in 1984. If I were to review this release solely for its sentimental value, my text would be little more than exhausting every synonym of the word "great" from an internet thesaurus, but I have to admit that as much as I genuflect before this disc in admiration, it's pretty wanting in some aspects.

I wouldn't replace singer Cadaveria with anyone though. As far as I'm concerned, this is her queen-crowning performance, and few even come close to her unique approach here. Before the music even begins, she's already howling like a psychotic saucer-eyed witch, ready to disrobe and plunge a ceremonial dagger into some sedated bastard. What I love about her screechy wails is the fact that they truly sound feminine in nature. She's as savage and furious as a rabid wolf, yet there's no questioning her gender whatsoever. Cadaveria thrives on her wild femininity, scaring the dicks off my neighbors when I used to blast "The Oak" at get-togethers. Not a one-trick pony, she also sings cleanly on frequent occasions within all of these six tracks, but not in a dainty or a vibrato-fueled manner. She goes for that doomy high priestess vibe, and while being technically raw and unpolished, it works on an atmospheric level, in that she gives off the impression of being a coven leader first, and a vocalist as a second profession.

Speaking of atmospheric levels, Sacro Culto is a fucking torchbearer when it comes to atmosphere. The aura is clearly black metal overall in aesthetics, but the heavy bass presence and the low thin crunch of the guitars adorns the songs with a crawling low-budget doom vibe as well. What happens, though, when all of the instruments are at full throttle, is that the redwood thick bass undertone almost completely buries the bass drum to the point where it occasionally becomes barely discernible, little more than a distant pulse excluding the final track, in which the engineer finally seems to get his shit together to some degree. The snare's relative trebly sharpness acts like the better metronome holding the riffs together, and the toms are clearly audible, especially when Marcelo pounds the piss out of them early on during "Under the Sign of the Red Dragon". The keyboards often come across like a ghostly horn section, dark and majestic for the most part, but sometimes jaunty and celebratory, such as during the mid-portion of "The Oak". There's also some clean overlaying guitar melodies and piano tinkering which add a bit of flare, certainly beneficial when dealing with songs bearing such imposing lengths.

The music is dark as all hell for much of the album, but as I stated regarding the keyboards, there are moments in general that take on this pleasing celebratory vibe, but in a ritualistic ceremonial way. With lyrics predominately espousing all manner of pagan worship and dark goddesses, Opera IX successfully captures both the eeriness and the joyous exhilaration of late night rituals, culminating with naked dancing around a sacrificial bonfire. Sounds like a good fucking time to me. This is best represented in, surprise, "The Naked and the Dance", in which the first couple of minutes comprise of acoustic strumming, tribal drumming and wistful vocal melodies. Even the warbling dude that sounds like like he's singing while trying to maintain his balance on a tightrope somehow works in accompanying Cadaveria's enthusiastic "la-la-las". It's a deliriously great mood setter, and one of my prime go-to tunes when I feel the compulsion for this band's work.

Other standout moments include the doom-drenched fifteen minute monster "My Devotion", commencing as a quiet slithering menace until it finally barrels into blast beats around the six minute mark, and the opening pseudo horn melody of "Fronds of the Ancient Walnut" rings like an imperial call to raise some serious hell. Plus I dig the crow caw out of nowhere towards the tune's climax.

Unfortunately I can't finish this review without some criticisms that became apparent after my initial state of euphoria wore off. First off, this album is one hell of a long journey. Six songs, with the briefest number clocking in at over eight minutes. Granted, the band does their damnedest to keep things interesting with lots of pace shifts, a multitude of riffs topped off with interesting keyboard flourishes, and Cadaveria's consistently enchanting, feral delivery (if someone told me that she recorded her vocals in the nude, I'd believe it). Still, some trimmings would have aided the album's flow, such as shaving a couple of minutes off of "Cimmeries"' latter half, which kind of plods along after the first five minutes or so of enticing freneticism.

For such ambitious and mammoth-sized compositions, normally I would expect the band's chops to match their aspirations, yet I can't say that anyone in the band is exceedingly adroit at their instruments. This point of scrutiny really kicks into gear during the guitar solos, which are hair-raising due to the sheer shrill tone of the lead guitar, as opposed to any jaw-dropping moments of virtuosity. I don't mind them whatsoever when they stick to simple melodies above the riffs, but whenever Ossian succumbs to the delusion that he's a rock star superhero, the results are periodically painful to endure. The man obviously pulls a lot of weight within the band, otherwise I can't imagine how the other members could allow for that rotten solo at the middle of "Fronds of the Ancient Walnut" to drag on for so damn long. Jesus Christ it sounds like ad-lib buffoonery as he fumbles around with some Egyptian scale. There must have been a pressing time limit in the studio to leave that noodling in there.

I suppose I could rail on the overall production as well, since it does sound like Ossian had to settle for recording his rhythm tracks with a Gorilla practice amp in the studio once he realized he'd left his amp stack at home, but I won't. The bass-dominant mix combined with the reverbed vocals conjure up that feeling of being deep in a forest late at night. Not a cold, wintery night, but a warm yet breezy one, perfect for shedding clothes and going apeshit while a high priestess waves her arms to the stars and howls about the "sacred stones of the Cromlec’h" or some jive with unrestrained conviction.

Sacro Culto may not be perfect, but its detriments are relatively minor in the face of this recording's sheer ambiance. The term 'pagan metal' itself remains a head-scratcher to me, but if I was forced to define it, I'd just point to this album and leave it at that. Being one of the catalysts that brought me back to metal fandom, it remains a personal treasure, and if I'm possibly being too lenient in my assessment of it, then so be it. It was an important find for me personally, and it possesses a ferocity to match its peculiar atmosphere that I've rarely encountered elsewhere. It's a shame that Cadaveria split with the band after their next effort, since her presence in Opera IX was a force of nature, and what little of her solo stuff I perused didn't exactly catch my fancy, lacking the gloomy occult vibe that suited her so well.

I've never felt even remotely compelled to stupidly call out some singer's name since that lowlight of my sexual exploits back in the day, and nowadays I'd probably be set on fire in my sleep if I ever pulled that stunt again. But my strong affinity towards female vocals has never abated since the day my uncle played "White Rabbit" for me as an impressionistic youngster, and I might just do the same for my own kids someday. Sacro Culto might be pushing it as an introduction to what women have to offer vocally, but then again, maybe the worst that could happen would be if my kids eventually swiped my CD and brought it to school for show-and-tell. When the principal inevitably calls, I'd simply and sharply state that we're pagans or something. Problem solved.

Where's the best place to start with this behemoth of an album? Perhaps right at the start, as the listener is greeted by Cadaveria's harsh rasp which is then followed up by a doomy riff and keyboards that bring to mind a brass instrument playing a dirge. And thus the tone is set for the rest of the album.

This album is nearly impossible to fit into one sub genre or another. The overall feel is a rather downbeat sort of gothic with doom-influenced guitars and significant pagan and black metal influences as well. In the end it creates an atmosphere like few others I have heard, all at once punishing, depressing, and absolutely captivating.

The vocals deserve a paragraph of their own. The majority of Cadaveria's vocals are delivered in a harsh rasp that sounds unlike much else out there. It isn't a black metal rasp and might be closer to a growl if it were lower in pitch. She also mixes in a significant amount of clean singing, though I'd use the word "clean" loosely. Her cleans are wonderfully unrefined, having an almost diseased-sounding quality at points, bringing to mind a ritualistic chant at others. She constantly changes between harsh and clean, being mid-line sometimes and doing so to great effect. Male cleans occasionally surface as well in much the same fashion as Cadaveria's cleans.

The guitar tone is worth mentioning as well. It is highly distorted in a way that brings to mind death-doom bands such as Unholy (Fin). The bass is also very high in the mix, really thickening up the sound, and ratcheting up the doom factor by a notch or two.

The keyboards and assorted other noises are also a significant ingredient in the recipe for the bubbling potion that is Sacro Culto. Piano sounds are prevalent in a number of songs. The horn-sounding keyboards in The Oak work wonders within the context of the song. Bells at the start of My Devotion add a sense of majesty. The keyboards here are not overdone, but are used effectively and are nearly as essential as the guitars on the whole.

And the blast beats! They're used very sparingly, but demand attention when they come in. Perhaps the best example comes about 6 minutes into The Oak. They have a superb tone to them, one that really delivers blow after blow to the listener.

If there is a complaint to be made, it could be that the album is quite long, and some of the songs run on a bit, especially toward the latter end of the album. This is, however, a minor complaint, and I often find myself wishing it was longer.

Long story short, this album is criminally underrated. More people should know about this album and listen to it. It's a hidden gem. I highly recommend it to anyone who might find something appealing in a gothic/black/doom/pagan metal masterpiece.

This album has been in my collection for several years, though it has not received as much attention as it deserves. I blame this on the fact on several factors. First, that my CD collection expands at an exponential rate, and inevitably, albums are shuffled in and out of rotation. Secondly, Shiver released this album in one of those infernal digipak dealies, which I abhor and shove to the bottom shelves of my collection, as they screw up the shelf spacing.

Thanks to Totenkopf on our Disgruntled Metalheads board inquiring about the band, I dug out SACRO CULTO for some long overdue spins.

SACRO CULTO is an excellent album with a variety of styles, blending doom metal and extreme metal with epic, atmospheric, and symphonic stylings, and even some gothic influences. The album is quite long, clocking in at over 70 minutes in length, and each of the six songs on this album is a unique piece, most running well over ten minutes long.

The heart of Opera IX is “Pagan doom metal.” Many of the songs start out slow with the basic elements, most prominently in the thick, heavy riffs by guitarist Ossian. Instead of sludgy distortion, however, the guitar tone is rawer and has a sharper edge. The band does not stick with any one style for very long, moving from doom to frenetic, chaotic riffs and blastbeats.

In addition to the talented and experimental songwriting, two additional elements accentuate Opera IX’s unique blend of dark, epic metal. First, is the vocalist Cadaveria. Her style varies from the harsh, typical black metal growl to a clean, almost operatic style. Cadaveria’s voice is not polished as many of the other female vocalists, but she performs the duties well throughout the spectrum. Secondly, the skillful use of the instruments creates a dark, haunting atmosphere throughout each of Opera IX’s tracks. Mellow acoustic passages, vocal chanting, folkish breakdowns and ethereal keyboard melodies alternate with harsher passages in an intense juxtaposition of styles. The end result reminds me somewhat of a doomier version of fellow Italians Stormlord in some places.

One of my favourite tracks on the album is “Fronds of the Ancient Walnut,” a 12 minute epic that incorporates every element in Opera IX’s repertoire. My other favourite is also the most unique track on the album, “The Naked and the Dance,” which begins with an extended folky intro of wood flute, clean chanted male vocals, clean female vocals, and handclaps over a base of acoustic guitar melodies and thumping tribal drumming.

In the end, my words cannot adequately describe the multitude of styles and influences that Opera IX meld on SACRO CULTO. This album is an excellent piece of epic extreme metal with Pagan themes and a dark atmosphere throughout. I encourage any fan of this style to check this album out, or pull it off your shelf for another spin if it has been a while.

(originally written by me for www.metal-rules.com, January, 2003)