You are about to live an unique experience created by Shores of Null.
Entitled Beyond the Shores (on Death and Dying), it is a creation made by Davide Straccione (vocals, Zippo), Matteo Capozucca (bass/backing vocals, ex-Il Grande Scisma d’Oriente), Emiliano Cantiano (drums, Noumeno), Gabriele Giaccari (guitar/backing vocals, The Orange Man Theory) and Raffaele Colace (guitar/backing vocals).
For this third album, the italians thought big. One song. One single song. But this wonderful composition, that longs nearly forty minutes, also offers the participation of exceptional musicians. We have Fabio Gabbianelli (double bass) and Valentina Gabbianelli (violin) for soft parts, but also Martina L. McLean (vocals), Paolo Campitelli (piano), Marco Mastrobuono (guitar/bass), Elisabetta Marchetti (vocals, Inno), Mikko Kotamäki (vocals, Swallow the Sun) and Thomas A G Jensen (vocals, Saturnus).
It is complex to describe such an experience with words. If the song has to be listened in a single take, it develops different and complementary ambiences. The band’s melancholic and heavy basis permanently stays, and guests add their specific touch, beginning with Mikko Kotamäki and Thomas A G Jensen’s howlings, that enrich the group’s intense rhythmic with this melodic oppression. By the way, melodies are permanently part of those riffs, which slows down, accelerates, wear some dark tones or contrariwise gets softer with female vocals, while letting Davide Straccione the honor to mesmerize us with this heady chorus, that we will keep in mind for hours after the listening session. The introductive and outro samples give us the feeling of living in the eye of the storm in a way or another. Between piercing harmonics, recognizable as well as reinterpreted influences and massive riffs, there is everything.
Shores of Null took a huge risk with this new album. However, Beyond the Shores (on Death and Dying) is an unusually pure treasure, of which sparkle will shine for years on the band’s career, which seems to be at its peak.
95/100
