(Andy Synn can’t resist the pull of the new album from Hadit, out now on I, Voidhanger)
I recently stumbled across some online… let’s call it “discourse”, to be polite… about how the Metal scene is dying (it isn’t, obviously) because no-one values innovation any more.
Digging deeper, the gist of the argument appeared to be that Metal fans hate anything new and that only the originators of any particular style have anything worthwhile to offer.
Now, glossing over the inherent contradiction in this (as well as the fact that it ignores the iterative nature of musical evolution) what really saddened me about this attitude – in addition to its shamelessly self-righteous nature – was that, despite pretending to be more “enlightened”, it basically ignores the central idea that art is, primarily, a means of expression and communication, through melody, tone, and rhythm, in favour of a view that seems to see music as little more than an extension of the capitalist growth machine, one which must always be “innovating” to provide fresh “product”… regardless of whether it actually has anything meaningful to say.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that bands shouldn’t grow and evolve, it’s just that it should only be done on their own terms and in their own time – as Hadit so clearly demonstrate on their recently-released second album.
Looking back at the band’s first album, With Joy and Ardour…, you can clearly see – with the benefit of hindsight – where the seeds of Metaphysical Engines were first planted.
The murky, malevolent blast und dirge of previous tracks like “A Digression and Her Eternal Domain…” and “The Submission of Rage…”, for example, clearly provide the foundation for the opening pairing of “Becoming The Light Eternally Travelling On The Photon Sphere” and “Interstellar Medium’s Rhapsody”, which finds the Italian band (now expanded to a three-piece) leaning more towards the Black Metal side of their sound – without, I might add, simply relying on the trite tricks and tropes of traditional “Blackened Death Metal” – while also expanding upon their more esoteric and unexpectedly melodic ambitions.
And it’s this idea of expansion – expanding their sound, expanding their vision, and expanding the scope of their songwriting – which underpins this new era of the band, especially once the trio begin to fully embrace an even more enigmatic and multifaceted approach on tracks such as early highlight “Three Ways of Death After Gravitational Collapse” and its equally captivating companion “Screaming From the Throat of a Reversed Light Being”, which combine the sullen, suffocating grooves of Immolation at their most atmospheric with the introspective intelligence of latter-day Blut Aus Nord.
Just as key to the album’s success are the contributions of new member Gabriele Gramaglia (Cosmic Putrefaction, The Clearing Path, etc) whose impressive, yet not overbearing, bass work and supernatural synth embellishments add a whole new layer of mysticism and mystique to the group’s sound which, in turn, seem to have given the original duo of Matteo and Fabrizio permission to push their boundaries further than ever before, exploring new extremes of both eerie minimalism and metallic excess in the process.
If all this sounds a tad too clever and cerebral for its own good, don’t worry, the group haven’t forgotten how to harness the more primal and primitive essence of their music – as the guttural churn of “Blood and Gods Know Where Weakness Is” or the clever contrast between heaving rhythms and haunting atmospherics which forms the core of closer “Del Tramonto Sul Nulla…” so clearly demonstrate – it’s simply that they have their sights set on a higher goal, one which they grow closer and closer to with each and every evolution of their sound.