DISARMONIA MUNDI: “THE DORMANT STRANGER”

(Last month brought us the first Disarmonia Mundi album in a decade, and it was just a matter of time before their sworn fan DGR would have something to say about it. Today is that day.)

In today’s exercise we’re going to try not to feel old. We’re going to ignore the aching backs and shattered knees, the thinning hairlines and bags under our eyes, the newly acquired arch support in our shoes, and we’re going to ignore that we’ve lately been on a kick of discussing the generational effect of music.

We’ll ignore that we’re now surprised whenever we see people at a show getting a mark from the venue that isn’t just a wristband stating that they can’t drink and we’re going to ignore that somehow despite showing no interest in two of the following three things, we somehow have still managed to attain a perpetual scent of black coffee, cigarettes, and Icy-Hot/Ben Gay that seems to follow us fucking everywhere.

The way things have been going lately, we’ve gotten pretty good about sticking our head in the sand. While we’re at it we’re even going to ignore that there exists written record of the last time we reviewed Italian melodeath studio project Disarmonia Mundi‘s previous album from almost ten years ago or that in the opening segments of that review, we even joked about just how goddamned long it had been between that disc and 2009’s The Isolation Game, an album that we’ve been going to bat for over the course of sixteen years.

Let’s just brush all of that aside and take things at face value and say that the perpetually underrated Disarmonia Mundi have returned once again after an impressive gap in time between albums for a new 2025 release entitled The Dormant Stranger, or else we’re all going to turn to dust.

The pattern for Disarmonia Mundi releases over the past decade and a half – at least since 2009, again, we’re not attempting to feel old here – has seemed to consist of putting out a fairly solid to great release, vanishing back into whatever studio work or other musical projects call, and then resurfacing when enough time has passed that basically a new album from the band is a soft re-introduction/re-launch of the group.

The scale of youth compresses everything up front when it comes to time, but still, it’s wild to think that were you someone who picked up on the Disarmonia Mundi crew when they started back in the early 2000s, you now could’ve had three pivotal generations of your lifespan pass by for the band to only now be reaching their sixth album. Considering this, Disarmonia Mundi are almost like distance measuring points or a musical landmark, something reliable and never changing. The distance over time traveled may be greater but Disarmonia Mundi remain ever-present, and if their new album The Dormant Stranger is anything to go by, just as good as they’ve ever been.

Perhaps these things take time, as the Disarmonia Mundi formula remains deceptively simple: Build entire songs around earworm-heavy guitar leads and melodies that have just enough ferocity to them that they don’t fall into the beer-swaying folk metal vat; drums and rhythm segments of the band need to stay mostly uptempo around solid melodeath riff-work; and a triple vocal attack with Soilwork‘s Bjorn Strid stepping in and out of song sequences when he gets the opportunity, and a handful of singalong choruses, and ta-da, that’s all it takes right?

But knowing this, maybe the time between albums – and it’s not like we as a website don’t specialize in stuff like this anyway given how many project resurrections have been kind enough to ask us to host a premiere for them over the years – consists of hammering away at just the right amount of Disarmonia Mundi formula to put into each song without it seeming too tacky. The band’s music is a time-capsule; they’re of a completely different era of melodeath music, and their ability to remain rigidly true to that style is impressive on its own. No one else sounds like them in that regard.

If nothing else, maybe it helps provide proof that keeping Disarmonia Mundi to a studio project has helped make the band members seem as if they are immortal because you would never guess that so much time had passed between releases if you had just run Cold Inferno and The Dormant Stranger back to back. Claudio Ravinale‘s high scream that seems to tear into songs from the upper rafters remains one of the better ones out there.

Maybe it is due to the gap of time, but an interesting facet of Disarmonia Mundi‘s latest issuance is that it takes a little bit of time to really find its footing. That isn’t to knock the album’s opening few songs – which were mostly released as singles ahead of time, so there is some familiarity in place – but just that they do feel like Disarmonia Mundi are having to establish themselves a bit again. Still, The Dormant Stranger is one of the most time-capsule albums that could have possibly been released with the Italian duo sticking rigidly to what they know best, and even so, it can still feel a little like Disarmonia Mundi are playing things very close to the chest. They basically run down all of the hallmarks of a Disarmonia Mundi song like a project foreman doing his final inspections before signing off for the day.

Taken from a less analytical and jaded point of view, that means that the three-fer of “Adrift Among Insignificant Strangers”, “Oathbreaker”, and “Shadows Of A World Painted Red” are all filled with killer guitar leads and earworm melodies, plenty of bouncing rhythm-section work, and you won’t go more than a scant few moments before the band tag “Speed” Strid in to help really rivet things down while Claudio is shrieking from on high, before he finally tag-teams with the two for a clean-sung chorus or four. If you’re familiar with Disarmonia Mundi and really missed their sound – because truthfully, few have nailed their particular brand of melodeath so well – then that opening three-pack is like settling into a warm bath. It’s comforting to be home and undeniable how easily you can headbang along to them, especially as all three seem written with one of the punchiest snare-drum hits in mind every chance they can rattle the fucking thing.

However, Disarmonia Mundi appear to be at their best on The Dormant Stranger when they let their fangs grow out a little bit. The songs that are surgically written to strike like assassins in the night, sharp enough to cut through actual metal without blinking, and quick enough that a speed camera sensor wouldn’t even catch a glimpse before they were out of sight. It is in these moments that Disarmonia Mundi do experiment a little bit with their sound, but only in the perpetual search for ‘new heavy’ when ‘old heavy’ just doesn’t cut it anymore.

These are songs still very much in the Disarmonia Mundi wheelhouse, but much like Cold Inferno in 2015 got oddly progressive and fiery at times, The Dormant Stranger does seem to want to justify the album art being completely bathed in red. You can’t pick the eye-grabbing subconscious-triggering color for ‘danger’ without at least having a few real facemelters lying in the mix. Songs such as “Illusion Of Control” and “Warhound” seem to arrive at just the right time; they’re still full of the pretty-boy swagger and luscious long hair of a melodic guitar lead yet Disarmonia Mundi recognize that the musical gas pedal is there for a reason and they step on it, picking things up and making those songs’ respective four-plus minutes rip past like nothing. They remain impressively intricate yet are more subtle than The Dormant Stranger‘s more gargantuan takes later on, because even with time to reintroduce themselves to the world, the band still can’t help themselves from unleashing a near-seven minute song or two upon their listeners, such as “The 8th Circle”.

“The 8th Circle” is Disarmonia Mundi at their most indulgent. It is the everything and the kitchen sink song of The Dormant Stranger and surprisingly enjoyable because of it. There’s a few parts within that hew a little close to Soilwork territory but Disarmonia Mundi have always kind of teeter-tottered on that ledge for a while so it’s nothing too surprising; if anything it sounds like the two bands are in a fight for dominance over the course of nearly seven minutes. You have the hefty guitar show-off and clean-sung chorus of Disarmonia Mundi and the husky bark that Soilwork have made their trademark for a while now.

It’s a little throwback, a little newer, and truthfully it’s a lot of everything that Disarmonia Mundi are doing on this album. It’s a lot of fun by virtue of sheer bombast, and truthfully, a highlight of The Dormant Stranger if not for the sheer grandioseness that Disarmonia Mundi are reaching for. Half the song feels built for soaring above the clouds and the rest of the time it has its head metaphorically stuck in them.

Listening to The Dormant Stranger it is hard to believe that a decade has passed between albums. Think of all the crazy shit that has managed to happen within ten years, how many bands and careers were launched, how many albums have been on year-end lists, hell even how busy the Disarmonia Mundi guys have kept between albums. Actually, pursuant to our opening paragraph, maybe we won’t.

The Dormant Stranger is the most comfortable, well within their ballpark, style of album Disarmonia Mundi could have possibly put out. Their bar for quality was already set pretty high, and to have them return and make it seem as if they’d just been on the standard two-to-three-year album and touring cycle is almost crazy. They’re not a band who’ve been ahead of the curve but one that has been executing so well on the melodeath blueprint that you could hardly ever go wrong. The Dormant Stranger is an excellent encapsulation of that particular sound – resurrecting the group’s criminally underrated penchant for melody and brainworm-worthy choruses for one more go around.

You could even view it a bit as splitting the difference between the group’s two prior releases but at that point it is like splitting hairs because you’re arguing over basic iterations. The Dormant Stranger is an enjoyable time stuffed with headbang-worthy riffs and enough air-guitar worthy moments to make the listening worthwhile.

https://disarmoniamundi.bandcamp.com/album/the-dormant-stranger
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