Italian project I MITI ETERNI is the creative vehicle of composer and musician Bruno Masulli, his one man band venture that was instigated back in 2004 and following a decade of development and an initial demo tape resulted in the debut album “Historia Cumae”, which was released through Italian label Jolly Roger Records in the fall of 2014.
While this is primarily a one man band project, some additional musicians does appear on this album: A female vocalist and two keyboard players contribute on parts of this production. Otherwise this is all the work of one man, and while impressive projects like this tend to come with some shortcomings as well.
The music here is firmly placed inside a metal context, with just a token couple of atmospheric laden creations breaking up a full scale metal assault. In this case the word assault is appropriate on numerous levels, as the music here is fairly primal sounding, and does come across as somewhat more primitive than it actually is. This due to the loud, rough guitar sound that is a steady ongoing feature, and a mix and production that does have some odd qualities to it. Not unbalanced nor primitive, but where the guitar has a tendency to overpower the other instruments in some passages, where especially the keyboards tends to suffer from this. Which might or might not be a planned effect, as the end result isn’t unpleasant, merely unusual.
Guitar driven is a key word for this production obviously, and the compositions tends to alternate between majestic, chugging heavy metal riffs, pacier galloping riff constructions with more of a power metal sheen to them, and occasional lapses into more frantic, thrash oriented escapades. Keyboards come and go as the main supplemental detail, providing dampened eerie textures, ethereal melodic coating and occasionally richer textures that creates a more majestic general atmosphere. Epic, majestic and rough are, in my book, the key words to use when describing the general feel and mood of this album actually, and the vocals have quite the role to play for the first set of those three words.
Masulli has a strong, powerful and melodic voice that he use to good effect throughout, and comes across as a quality vocalist. He alternates his singing with spoken voice deliveries, presumably fitting into the concept explored on this disc, and he’s also fond of backing vocals, both as spoken words but also as a more majestic presence, with single or dual layered operatic style backing vocals a frequent effect used throughout. A feature that does emphasize the majestic and epic scope of this production quite nicely.
Personally I do find this album to be an enjoyable one. Mix and production could probably be of a better quality, and there are some minor issues and details here and there that for me at least marks this album as an underground one, as a production that will have a somewhat limited appeal. None of them are major, but then again it is often the finer details that separate what is good from what is great. In this case my verdict is good, an enjoyable run through a majestic landscape alternating between heavy, power and thrash metal, where loud primal dark guitar riffs, powerful melodic lead vocals and a generally majestic, epic atmosphere are the main features, and a production that merits a check by those who find such a description compelling.
My rating: 70/100
