Resurrecturis
When an album kicks off with the kind of urgency and ferocious intensity consistent with any death metal offering worth its weight, you’d be forgiven for assuming here was a record ready to pummel and slay anything in sight, and for the first half of “Non Voglio Morire”, the third full-length by Italian death metallers Resurrecturis, this appears to be the case.
Opening track ‘The Origin’ demonstrates the bands’ open-armed embrace of all that is chaotically brutal and inspiringly ugly in this genre of music; a bristling combo of breakneck drumming, vicious, thrashed-out riffs, and tunelessly growled vocals. And the exquisitely-titled tracks ‘Fuck Face’ and ‘Corpses Forever’ continue to build on the frenzied aural assault with the kind of grind-infused fast, dynamic percussion and catchy guitar hooks one could easily picture Scott Ian stomp-marching all over with wild abandon.
The tempo slows for the more electronic-driven ‘The Artist’, a Manson-esque semi-whispered delivery replaces the death growl, and honey-throated female vocals are introduced, which should immediately lay waste to any doubts with regards the bands European heritage.
Although following a more standard verse-chorus arrangement not often employed in death metal, ‘Save My Anger’ retains the genres ambient discordance and whilst employing a bit of melodic vocal stylings, it’s still laced with enough snarling aggression to get heads banging.
From this point on the album strays from the death metal stronghold, and holding down the central slot in the album’s proceedings ‘Calling Our Names’ is a song which would also be well placed on Scuzz TV between the likes of Disturbed and The Rasmus, not necessarily a good thing mind, but the sped-up guitar histrionics and agonized yelling midway through ‘After The Show’ combined with the pulsing Pantera-like riffage at the end of the song almost make up for that.
Things definitely become slower and more groove-based at this point, with the last few tracks, ‘Walk Through Fire’ in particular, leaning a little more toward Lamb of God than death/thrash territory which, although not maintaining the pace and vitriol of earlier songs, is all well and good.
And this is where the album should have ended. Should have. But it didn’t. No, apparently Carlo Strappa (founding member, guitarist, and sole songwriter) had enough left in the tanks for one more. Unfortunately no one told him what was left in the tank was just the fetid detritus that had sunk to the bottom waiting to be scraped out and put on the next shitty 80s Power Ballad compilation, so instead Strappa saw fit to call it ‘In Retrospective’ and slap it on the end of this record. What. The. Fuck?!
A very disappointing end to an album that rushes out of the gates with maniacal fury, threatening, and sometimes succeeding, to tear asunder any aural cavities within a 10 mile radius with thundering blastbeats, venomous growls, and classic death metal riffage.