Ecnephias – Ways Of Descention

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Hovering between the occult gothic element and the north European / American school of Death- Black Metal roots, the witchcrafting Metal band ECNEPHIAS from Potenza, Italy make their third step in discography with the evolutionary “Ways Of Descention”, according to their sayings. This album carries many characteristics of their typical sound, plus a well-modulated atmospheric scene of darkness and melancholic despair. I could agree that the whole package seems tempting enough, although the outcome did not meet my expectations; unfortunately, ECNEPHIAS built a sonic mess as you will read below…

“Ecnephias” is a Greek word (but you also have the Latin version of it, “ecnephia”) for a particular storm, a sort of hurricane whose mention can also be found in Plinius. So, the rugged guitar playing and the harsh vocals define ECNEPHIAS sound that tries to be softening by the successful additions of keyboards and the atmospheric inserts of Latin and Italian, about the half part of the album, often orchestrated in a way similar to medieval chants. With songs like “Empty Cold Veins” and “Eternally Bound”, the result reaches perfection; what happens though with the rest of the album? I was pretty confused by the sudden turnings between origin Black Metal tunes and mellow dark and lachrymose moments, thus someone would pass over and not handle it. Nevertheless, the 40 minutes of “Ways Of Descention” roll lightly in the CD player but does not rest a single composition in mind, in the end of it.

ECNEPHIAS have to decide if they want to be a Death/ Black Metal band in the atmospheric CRADLE OF FILTH style or a Gothic Metal/ Rock one, in my opinion, like MOONSPELL and DEATH IN JUNE are; the combination seems to not having the desirable result and this is very bad because there’s a bundle of ideas and music worries. Also, the use of too much Italian does not compute for the universal ear, outside of Italy’s frontiers. After all, the instrumental “Il Martirio Di San Lucifero” remains my favourite; I wonder why…