Coronation
Sometimes it seems like we have been conditioned on these islands to laugh at the fripperies of our continental cousins what with their national dresses, revolutions, public displays of emotion and so on. Daft nonsense, not like us stoic, no-nonsense Brits. This can obviously extend to the over the top symphonic pretensions of numerous big selling European Metal acts that don’t really have the same profile here and the perplexing love of power metal in Germany and Italy. That’s not punk, mate.
This allows us to forget British music’s role in the evolution of this style from Deep Purple’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra, Ritchie Blackmore’s fantastical Rainbow, to the pomp and ceremony of Maiden and Priest gigs. This all means a pre-existing bias to scoff at Fleshgod Apocalypse’s synthesis of orchestration, heavy metal and highfalutin’ concepts definitely exists.
Having said all that, on King Fleshgod Apocalypse manage to combine a seriousness of concept dealing with what they see as a modern world operating more like the corrupt, despotic Middle Ages, highbrow classical instrumentation with a questing, fist in the air communitarian spirit. After the intro March Royale it’s straight into the clashing blast beats and palm-muted chuggery from the band detailing an absolute monarch’s rage and the choral voices and anxious strings on In Aeternum. Similarly, the General of the despot’s armies is a maelstrom of aggression. The Court does, of course, contain a jester hence the jaunty harpsichord intro to The Fool but this being death metal the mask hides a painful reality of the enslaved entertainment.
With all of the dense, narrative spewing guttural vocals, classical instruments and lightning fast death metal detail King can feel like the record Phil Spector might produce if ever released from prison as a tattooed metalhead - dense, layered and forceful not compromising. This usually works here given the concept but it can be exhausting as Fleshgod seem to have approached this as a symphonic death metal record rather than a death metal + orchestra album meaning that the two approaches are intertwined throughout rather than one occasionally augmenting the other. The listener is often bombarded with details.
There is variety in the songwriting, however, Cold as Perfection and Mitra are represent two sides of the same coin on King one taking a melodic, operatic grandiosity with swooping soprano vocals from Veronica Bordacchini and the other pushes the brutality to the fore pushing the melody away for more brass bottom end and furious kick drum rhythmic grunt. It is only when we reach Paramour (Die Leidenschaft Bringt Leiden) that the metal is fully stripped away leaving Bordacchini unaccompanied by electricity (and only once further on the meditative title track that closes the record).
That intermission ushers in the second half of the record which feels more mired in despair and disbelief on And the Vulture Beholds and Gravity as we move down the social order of Fleshgod’s vision. Here it is the guitar and drums of Tommaso Riccardi, Cristiano Trionfera and Francesco Paoli that propels the arrangements with Syphilis a standout moment of aggression and atmosphere.
Fleshgod Apocalypse’s death metal grit makes this elaborate symphonic record work. The concept at its base appears to be a traditional heavy metal band’s way of showing disgust in the modern world and the primacy of power and individualism; nothing out of the ordinary there. It will be clear that King has a specific incumbent audience but the sheer scale of the music and their songwriting that, believe it or not, restrains itself from the reaching the worst power metal excesses makes this record the Italian band’s most successful yet and most likely to find new fans.