The latest album from Italy’s Architeuthis Rex sees them continuing to confound and entrance with their eclectic and heavy sound. More focused and unsettling than their debut album, here they once again plumb the depths to uncover a world of sounds which sound like they come from some bottomless fissure in the middle of the ocean. Taking as much inspiration from aquatic zoology (in its various forms) as from music, Urania is a fantastic exploration of concept and sound.
Starting with what sounds like the pulse of a sonar device, Architeuthis Rex kick off with "Spacemetal #1." Despite the name, this is neither space-y nor metallic but a jet-black plunge into a submarine environment. A creeping rhythm steadily dives lower and lower, the sounds increasing in pressure the further they lead me down. Suddenly the intense feeling of compression breaks as I drift into "Urania" where the music takes a loose and blissful turn. The extended tones and gentle lapping of the beat gives an almost amniotic mood while Francesca Marongiu’s vocals come through the darkness, comforting and familiar in these strange environment.
From here onwards, Architeuthis Rex cover a range of styles and approaches to their music like a Cambrian explosion of possible forms.; weird and wonderful shapes emerge, bug-eyed and fluorescent on "Esione." Elsewhere, the concrète and quasi-scientific sounds that make up the alien ambience of "Basiliscus" could be the soundtrack to a marine biology expedition, think of 4AD funding Jacques Cousteau to bring Luc Ferrari down in his submarine and that is somewhat close to the mark.
The album closes with "Spacemetal #2," a hitherto unprecedented bout of rocking out as the duo assume a guise not unlike Circle at their most psychedelic. Where the rest of the album feels like a descent, a voyage into an abyss, this final piece represents a return to the surface. Depressurizing and feeling like there might be a case of the bends imminent, this parting blast is at once triumphant and disorientating. This pair of words could easily describe Urania as a whole.
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