STROSZEK : LIFE FAILURES MADE MUSIC
God Is Myth
If you’ve ever spent a few hours getting lost in the guitar work on a Frostmoon Eclipse album (and if you know anything about Italian black metal, you should have), you’ll already know that the musical phrases that trip off the fingertips of Claudio Alcara are insanely rich and dark; if you can imagine that spirit being transposed from grim, cold forests into a bare, dusty room on a warm, sticky night in the city, maybe you can start to understand what he’s created with Stroszek. Debut “Songs of Remorse” was beautiful – a gentle, melancholy paean to the early hours, all feeling acoustic guitar runs and sighing bass – and “Life Failures Made Music” taps the same mysterious vein.
Alright, so my FE reference was maybe a little bit disingenuous, and I wouldn’t like to fool black metal fans into expecting something they’re blatantly not going to get, but the sheer depth of the guitar work on “Life Failures”, the evocative complexity tripping daintily between the suicidally calm, simple breaks, and the resonant, story-telling leads have precisely that aura that you need from black metal compositions, that sublime, natural mystery that talks to your horribly cold soul. Except Stroszek is a quiet, bluesy, emotional, sometimes sweet project. And that’s the remarkable confluence.
It’s hard to describe “Life Failures” without resorting over-much to the word ‘beautiful’, but damn it, it IS; loose beats, skittering, introspective, acoustic picking, gentle bass, warm arpeggios, sweeps of the strings, delicious slides and ever-pregnant evolutions of complex ideas make it a delight to lose yourself within, and when the economically used electric guitar does swell up from the mournful depths, it’s just about perfect. It’s hard to choose a favourite track – opener “The Unlucky Ones” has a brilliant ‘plugged-in’ riff, a rich and soaring reflection, whilst “Undead Hotel” is a great example of how Claudio’s playing is at once delicate and sure. “Nighthawks and Underdogs” might just steal it for me, with its loose and lovely lead and building percussion, an evocatively written track, performed superbly. “Land of Silence and Darkness” is another contender, though… low and expressive, it is amazing yet very understated.
By going his own way from his black metal roots with this project, Sig. Alcara has revitalised his connection to his own musical impulses, and also, seemingly, to the more gloomy of his inner feelings. The introspective, whispered manner in which he delivers the album’s moody lyrics set the scene far better than any tortured howl ever could, and still seem a great fit for the style. This journey into the self seems to be improving Stroszek’s art as time goes by; “Songs of Remorse” was truly gorgeous, but “Life Failures” is even more varied, confident and moving. Ottimo.
87/100
ELLEN SIMPSON
