Musician / Digital Artist
Musician / Digital Artist
03 Jul 2024 - - Reviews
An extremely underrated German band, which falls into that isolated strand that emerged and died between the late ’80s and the early years of the following decade, called “techno thrash” by critics, where I would also place bands like Sieges Even, Watchtower, Confessor, and Toxic.
Among this aforementioned group, Mekong Delta might be the least flashy but definitely the most original. This is evident from the compositions on this album, their third release, dating back to 1989.
The sounds are very strange, even for that time, with melodies and riffs in constant dissonance that seem to be played by plastic robots, sci-fi arrangements with various cameos of bizarre-sounding instruments. A voice that always seems reluctant to follow the parts of its colleagues. Imagine all of this grafted onto the riffing of the most uncompromising thrash of those years, and you will get an inkling of the musical proposition of these crazy Germans.
03 Jul 2024 - - Reviews
The latest full-length to date from the Swede Tobias Forge, known under the moniker of Ghost.
This band, if it can be called that, needs little introduction. The genre presented, even in this work, is a rock pop with occasional metal elements, very theatrical, and extremely well-arranged. The themes of the lyrics are the same as those found in the early works: a sort of dark, but sweetened so that the average person can enjoy it without being worried.
The music also seems meticulously crafted, with so much perfection and quality in what you hear.
In general, nothing new under the sun for Ghost, but yet another album of incredible quality that falls into that thin territory that will make it unappealing to the most uncompromising metalhead while at the same time making even those who find a simple rock song heavy feel rebellious and dark.
03 Jul 2024 - - Reviews
Side project of Periphery guitarists, Misha Mansoor and Mark Holcomb. Very intricate instrumental death prog, filled with blasts, chord-based atmospheres, and caustic breakdowns.
In short, we find a bit of all the guitar elements that have made the two axemen who created this project popular.
The sound is modern and excellently produced, as one would expect from musicians of such caliber in the genre. On several occasions, perhaps due to the intense use of blast beats and dissonant chords, Ihsahn of Emperor’s production came to mind.
The drums seem programmed based on the dynamics, but the intertwining guitars are absolutely worth listening to, especially for those not very familiar with that modern branch of metal called djent.
24 Jun 2024 - - Reviews
An American band that offers very well-crafted atmospheric death metal, thick and articulated, with good production.
They certainly don’t shine for originality (in my opinion, you can often hear influences from Morbid Angel and Hypocrisy, especially regarding the arrangements of the rhythm section), but the atmospheres that Hath manage to create with interesting guitar interplay (with intense and careful use of dissonances and particular harmonizations) and the skillful use of reverbs transport us for all 51 minutes of this album into a dark and medieval hell where the listener is pierced by powerful and sharp blades.
21 Jun 2024 - - Reviews
New York power trio led by singer/bassist Erica Stoltz, offering excellent 80s-style heavy metal. At times, strong influences of Iron Maiden, Scorpions, and Saxon can be heard, which our musicians exploit to compose simple and catchy songs that will delight genre enthusiasts.
Nothing to shout about miracles for, but certainly effective and enjoyable.
26 May 2023 - - Discography,Self productions
This is the sixth album for the Goldenseed saga, written in 2022 and published one year later.
The initial idea was to recreate the musical style of Karnak (band in which I played from 1993 to 2010) expecially in their most progressive period, when we were mixing technical death metal with dark and obscure atmospheres taken from the Italian progressive bands of the 70s, thanks to the collaboration with Marco Colella, a genial pianist living in our region.
In the same time span, I was experimenting with artificial intelligence to create weird and horrorif images. The tunes of this album want to describe with music and lyrics the sensations that those image give to eye of the beholder.
[bandcamp width=350 height=472 album=678320099 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=de270f artwork=none]
Seitenkult (8/10)
Transcending The Mundane
02 Apr 2022 - - Collaborations,Discography
I know Johnathan Vanderbilt since many years and I’ve always appreciated the passion and the constancy he puts in his musical endevours.
I gladly participated as a guest, with some guitar solo, on the songs “Green Forest” e “Gates Of Hollow Earth” taken from his last album under the name of Celtic Hills.
The music of this album can be labelled as symphonic power metal, and this Huldufólk boldly takes out the main and the best characteristics of this genre. You will find epic and glorious choirs to sing along as loud as you can as well as bombastic heavy metal riffs.
The album has been produced and recorded by Michele Guaitoli, frontman of great bands like Temperance and Visions Of Atlantis.
21 Nov 2021 - - Gear
I bought this guitar in 2015, after I regret selling the previous Ibanez I had at that time, a RG7420. In that period, the eight string model with the fixed bridge was available, so I got it. After all, you cannot be a serious heavy metal guitarist without an Ibanez in your arsenal!
Like all low-priced Ibanez, its main peculiarities are solidity and simplicity. Few controls, no frills, everything is ready to use. Like all the guitars of the same brand, its strong point is the neck. It has a very thin profile that enables an ultra-comfortable grip that has no comparison in the entire guitar world (at least for my tastes, but I’m sure that I’m not alone with this opinion).
With its fixed bridge it’s impossible to go out of tuning even when your downstrucks are brick-heavy djenty breakdowns or muscolar power-metal rides.
I remember that this guitars came with a factory tuning of one step below standard, actually quite an unusual choice. However, tuned one step below standard (I tune this way all my instruments, even the basses) there are absolutely no problems, this guitar is rock solid.
I played a lot of gigs with this axe and it always behaved like a powerful workhorse, loyal and reliable. Also, being very cheap, if going up and down the stage it gets some bump, who cares!
Sure, its low price is paid in terms of sound. When unplugged you can realize that by playing the two lowest strings, open or fretted wherever on the neck: they will sound like some kind of fluffy piece of plastic. You can easily describe the sound onomatopeicly with “plop” or “splat”. This does not change even with a new pricey set of fresh strings.
When connected to an amp, the plastic stock pickups will not make anybody happy: not only the most refined djentlemans will eager to replace those terrible microphones as soon as possible. Despite this consideration, I’m still there with the original pickups…. what a lazy person I am!
However, taking into consideration the price of the instrument and feeling of mastery that it provides, I still suggest everyone to buy one, and if for some reason I will need to, I will buy it one thousand times more.
This model (black and lefty) is not available anymore.
Ibanez is producing it in standard dexterity and white color [see Official Ibanez website]
17 Oct 2021 - - Discography,Self productions
This album, initially written in 2017 and published in 2020, should have been the second album of the band Born Again.
For a number of reasons, the band’s activity wasn’t going forward for some years. I had these ten songs ready for preproduction in MIDI format, so I decided to turn them into the fifth chapter of my solo project, Goldenseed.
I recorded this album during the first Covid-19 lockdown, so which best moment to choose virus, bacteria and various illnesses as topic for the lyrics? Each song describes the horrors and the most terrible symptoms of the ten most dreadful epidemics that stroke humanity along the centuries. I was not miserly about every detail, even the most horrifying ones.
Like any other solo works of mine, I played, sung and recorded all the parts.
Metal Archives (92 / 100)
Metal Brothers (7,25 / 10)
17 Oct 2018 - - Collaborations,Discography
In this Sanity Obscure‘s album, dated 26th August 2018, you can hear me playing a guitar solo in the song Technomancer.
I got invited in this project by Joshua Leon, guitarist and main composer of the band. He is also the founder of Celestial Serenity, a project in which I played the Chapman Stick back in 2014.
The musical style of Sanity Obscure (they are from Singapore) resembles the best death metal bands of the early 90s, and adds a lot of progressive, alien and sci-fi elements to the main trunk of the sound. I strongly recommend to add them to your playlists, you won’t regret it.