Alta Rossa – A Defiant Cure
Release Date: 22nd November 2024
Label: Source Atone Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Atmospheric Sludge Metal, Death Metal, Post-Metal, Industrial.
FFO: Grava, Neurosis, YOB, early Gojira, LLNN, Celeste.
Review By: Rick Farley
Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born, and in this chiaroscuro, monsters emerge.”
Album statement: “A Defiant Cure symbolizes that all despair can be tamed, saturated, and sublimated, that all obscurantism can be defeated through a common amorphous, and unpredictable rebellion. The title itself combines two opposing notions: defiance and cure, a challenge and solution. Marking an evolution in the mindset and the desire to overcome, A Defiant Cure tackles what we all accept as normal, a banality of evil that triumphs over complex thought and an elusive, rich world.”
France’s premier atmospheric sludge metal band Alta Rossa returns with ferocious album number two, A Defiant Cure, releasing November 22nd, 2024, via Source Atone Records.
Produced by Alta Rossa, with mixing and mastering engineer Thomas Fournier, A Defiant Cure is warm, yet suffocating and harsh. Rawness within an open slightly airy atmosphere, everything mingles together with clarity, while still drudging through the depths of murkiness. Its sound quality equals its gripping, oppressive aura. Summoning you near, only to wrap its grimy hands around your throat and squeezes just enough to leave your lungs half filled with life giving breath.
The album opens furiously with Exalted Funeral. Lurking melodies over repeated metallic riffing quickly lets the listener know they will be pummelled over and over again. A great opening track with tons of apocalyptic aggression and oppressive soundscapes.
The Art of Tyrant #Slash The Minotaur starts with a tribalistic drum groove, thumping bass, female chanting and a haunting, distorted open chord structure. The beguiling track mesmerizes you with its droning qualities before reaching a destructive, forceful shift in mood. It’s ethereal and doomy to start, hitting a
more aggressive, near black metal attack close to the three-minute mark with its fiery tremolo picking. Seething melodies over crunchy riffs with course screams bringing out the immersive tension of the track. Never once feeling bloated, its six and a half minute runtime, flies by while you’re being held spellbound. This easily stands as the best track in my opinion.
From This Day On takes a more stylistically industrial approach. It’s fast charging and aggressive to start, then becomes a massive wall of guitars and slow crushing beats. Burning melodies with shouted harsh vocals over an almost mechanical atmosphere feels somewhat punkish, at least in pure attitude.
A Defiant Cure while being an incredibly good record, it sometimes feels restrained. The band executes this particular sound exceptionally well, but never reaches far past the song structure they’ve set for themselves. It’s limited seemingly by its own choice. Which is perfectly fine, but the album does lack in the memorability department. After only a few listens, it all starts to blend together. Its 41-minute runtime doesn’t wear out its welcome, but there is a solid three or four minutes of useless instrumentals that are more or less just synth type sounds that add nothing in my opinion.
Despite this, Alta Rossa truly brings a dark and brutal atmosphere to get lost in. If you approach the album as a whole, it works in hypnotizing you while it’s beating you over the head with hard charging riffs, shouted growls and atmospherically choking you near death. Fans of this style of music will be pleased. Worth checking out.
(3.5 / 5)
