ALBUM REVIEW: Gelidae Mortis Imago – Noctu

Funeral doom is a genre of music that is not only hard to do right, but also keep interesting. Long, plodding tracks of slow, morose music often make this genre alienating to many of those who are uninitiated into this kind of sound. Italy’s NOCTU manage to not only do this style incredibly well, but make their music extremely memorable for all the right reasons. Their latest album, Gelidae Mortis Imago, is a great example of this. Coming three year after their debut, Illuminandi – Esoterica illuminazione ermetica, it’s massive step up for NOCTU, and proves to be a fantastic album that sets a lofty bar for any of their future music.

Suicidio al chiaro di luna, a brief, atmospheric instrumental piece, opens this album with a great, eerie piece of ambient music built around pianos, that sets a bleak and haunting tone straight away, building a sense of foreboding for the listener. When Fitte tenebre (Le radici dell’ inferno) finally starts the album proper, it’s with a lengthy, sprawling piece of sepulchral, murky doom which moves at a funereal pace, with minimalist, morose guitars and slow, hypnotic drums making for a spartan sound that is cloaked in a dense atmosphere. The vocals, by contrast, are feral, tortured howls that suit the bleak nature of the music extremely well, adding a hint of black metal to the already heady blend of doom and ambient music on offer. Despite its slow, plodding pace, it’s a deeply engrossing piece of music that draws the listener in, proving to be thoroughly captivating.

Oltre i cancelli del cimitero, another short composition that combines an oppressive feel with ethereal, disjointed pianos, providing a short interlude between two sprawling tracks. Lucida oscurita senziente is just as monolithic as the albums second number, but has a much lighter sound and a dramatic, gothic keyboard passage, around which the rest of the music gradually begins to form. With dense, rumbling bass lines and tight, melodic guitars, this proves to a have a relatively animated sound, at least in comparison to what has come before it, making for a bombastic, cavernous slab of doom with slick, catchy flourishes and a vast, cinematic sound that is absolutely enthralling at points. The primal, arid vocals carve through the sublime components of this songs sound and adds a fierce edge to the glorious, melancholic tone of the rest of the music. It’s a great, beguiling track that does a great job of varying the albums sound whilst still retaining many of the core elements that make it so great.

After one last instrumental piece, Sangue sulla mia lapide, which again makes heavy use of discordant, off kilter piano motifs to craft a claustrophobic and uncomfortable atmosphere, we reach the sixth and last offering, Isolato da un mondo senza speranza. If the listener thought that Fitte tenebre and Lucida oscurita senziente were long, then this song proves to be positively gargantuan, being longer that some whole albums would be. Luckily, the music makes the near 32 minute span of this final, climactic number great. The dark ambient side of the bands sound is out in full force, with crawling, magnificent funeral doom proving plenty of depth and grandiosity, with as many jarring moments as there are angelic ones, taking the listener on a varied and absorbing journey, making for an fantastic end to an equally fantastic record.

It’s very, very hard to find fault with Gelidae Mortis Imago, and it’s even harder not to get engrossed in this music, One of the main strengths is NOCTU‘s ability to make longer tracks not only interesting, but also thoroughly enthralling from start to finish, throwing in a variety of different elements in order to keep songs which are often times longer than some whole EPs extremely beguiling. Gelidae Mortis Imago is a great, sprawling piece of music, all the more impressive when you consider it was written and recorded by one person. NOCTU may have just released one of the best albums of 2020.

Rating: 9/10

Gelidae Mortis Imago is set for release May 8th via Transcending Obscurity Records. 

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