FIURACH

What exquisite creative intuition one must possess, what extraordinary courage, to take such a step — recording a radio broadcast of a hockey match instead of a proper intro. Original??? You bet!!! If only the whole album were like that: stick a sample from a nature documentary here, a pop comedian there, and a talent show over yonder... Then yes, it would be avant-garde. As it stands, Italy's FIURACH present the listener with an incoherent "masterpiece" of dubious artistic value. Attempting to mix epic pomposity, black metal velocity, doom atmosphere, the infernal march of thrash, and neoclassical flourishes in a single glass, the band has spawned a Frankenstein's monster — a grotesque freak assembled from the body parts of Kerry King, Luca Turilli, Kristoffer Jonsson, and MORTICIAN in full lineup. The vocalist sings like I do in the shower, the guitars are hopelessly out of tune, and the keyboardist has some unknown psychological syndrome — a fear of keys!!! — forcing the poor fellow to stand a meter back from the synthesizer and play with a single left pinky broken three times in five places. So much for the music. The lyrics contain no less nonsense — a riveting fantasy horror story about how the day is coming when the Gates of Chaos shall open, and out will march calamity in orderly ranks, bringing total... uh... FIURACH to all!!! However, with excessive consumption of this product of the music market, I am afraid FIURACH will come for us much, much sooner...