(written by Islander)
We’ve been following the Italian death metal band Into Darkness for a long time — nearly 14 years, to be more precise. Beginning with a demo they released in 2012, we’ve written about their records eight times, most recently praising their 2023 EP, Cassini-Huygens. Those releases all took the shape of EPs and splits, but now Into Darkness finally have a debut album set for release on July 24th by Dying Victims Productions.
The name of the album is Route to the Other Side. Like previous releases, it was inspired by divulgative (popular) astronomy. In this case it is a concept record about the outer solar system.
The album’s song titles map a journey through those far reaches, beginning with “Jupiter“, moving on to “Saturn” and “Uranus” (the song we’re about to premiere), and eventually passing through the “Kuiper Belt” and onward to “Pluto“, and ending with the title song “Route to the Other Side“.
Doomed Warrior continues to lead the band, although the members who have joined her have changed over time. On the new album, the influence of classic Dutch death metal is still evident, and the music doesn’t express its lyrical themes by resorting to spacey synths or drifting ambient passages, yet Into Darkness find other ways to bring us through the vast distances and immense spectacles their music explores.
The massive gas-and-ice giant Uranus is an imposing and mysterious place. According to this source, it possesses a complex layered cloud structure and has the lowest minimum temperature of all the planets, the cause of which is obscure. Because of its unusual axial tilt, in an 84-Earth-year orbital period around the Sun, its poles get around 42 years of continuous sunlight, followed by 42 years of continuous darkness. Like Saturn, it has a ring system, but it’s extremely dark
How do Into Darkness channel this astonishing ice giant in their music? They begin with a heavily clanging bass solo that establishes a melody and then they pick up the melody with a writhing and wailing guitar that’s gritty in tone, backed by slugging beats and jolting blows, soon augmented by a guitar solo that woozily wanders, frantically quivers, and eerily soars.
Doomed Warrior’s caustic howls are furious, as are tremolo’d swarms of riffing that accompany them, but the music also spins out strangely slithering, ecstatically screaming, and frenetically darting arpeggios; bounding percussive cadences; fast-jabbing fretwork attacks, and a witchy guitar solo that spirals high.
The pace of the song also accelerates into a blood-rushing gallop, and both the fleet-fingered riffing and the vocals go wild, rushing the blood all by themselves. The pace also downshifts again into a highly headbangable closing phase.
In a word, the song is dazzling. To be sure, it’s death metal through and through, and a very sinister and body-bruising experience at that, but also an intricate and constantly twisting trip. And thankfully, the music’s production allows all the fast-changing kaleidoscopic ingredients that orbit the grooves and howls to stand out.
INTO DARKNESS is:
Santo – Pilot (Drums)
Filippo – Mission Specialist (Rhythm Guitars & Leads)
Doomed Warrior – Commander (Rhythm Guitars & Leads, Bass Guitar, Acoustic Guitars, Vocals)
Dying Victims will release Route to the Other Side on CD and vinyl LP formats, as well as digitally. The album’s eye-catching cover art is the creation of Claudio Elias Scialabba.
The album is available for order now, and after the links we’ve also included a stream of the record’s also-dazzling opening song “Jupiter“. In some respects it’s an even faster and more full-bore assault than “Uranus” (with some spectacular soloing in the mix), but it also connects with the band’s older death/doom roots and it inflicts some appropriately massive booming strikes and further affords a prime opportunity to wreck your necks. Perhaps needless to say, the raging vocals also come for your throat with all fangs bared.
PRE-ORDER:
https://dyingvictims.com/index.php
https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/route-to-the-other-side
INTO DARKNESS:
https://intodarkness.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/intodarkness