Steva Deathless with her powerful and smoky pipes always make us return to that particular well called Deathless Legacy. The band’s an absolute beast on stage with pretty elaborate productions. But this quality of the band – unfortunately – doesn’t always translate correctly once sound only plays. A fact that we painfully discovered on their 2018 piece Rituals of Black Magic, apart from the last track on this record that turned out to be top-notch indeed.
Yet again, Saturnalia finally added some much-needed spice to their portfolio a bit later. And – in truth – this encouraged the RMR review folks to continue with this band some more. After all, they got their moments of excellence with some real oomph following behind.
So, what satanic delights will Mater Larvarum bring to our turntable this time? Darkened disco vibes or some truly horrifying metal that’ll climb the Olympus of Steely Power? Well, grab yer climbing gear. These pyramids are kinda slippery and the descent steep and fast once you lose your hold.
There’s a saying that a leopard doesn’t change its spots. And that’s the impression this new record projects. In a way, the more vibrant place Saturnalia was in, kinda lost itself this time in imagined thoughts of dark caves filled with ghouls and bloodied teeth. So, we’re back in Rituals of Black Magic territory, unfortunately.
In other words, you’ll find a bunch of well-written tracks that will go down well with the civilized metal crowd out for some horror tales on a metal platter. Some deliciously gruesome shivers that one might enjoy for a limited time, like an overdose of Friday the 13th. But most tracks are seriously lacking bite, that angry oomph that would energize them grizzled metalheads. And that’s a pity because Steva here has the vocal powers to do more, much more. But – as always – it’s what Deathless Legacy will do with it on stage that counts.
That’s not to say that the RMR crew only enjoyed bland metallic fare on Mater Larvarum. The starting shot – Ora Pro Nobis1 – with its heavy stomp siphoned some of The Force off some occult origins. It comes complete with monkish chanting and a perfect solo or two. But – again – it hardly gets into the danger zone to dazzle us with its snazzy musical prowess. More playful items like Fade Into The Dark caught our attention a bit longer than others. Gothic Metal at a pretty sturdy melodic pace and again crowned by a neat little solo.
And lastly, Moonless Night will try to impress with some snazzy groove on some background note that sounds more like Nightwish than it should, really. The band did indeed try to recreate the magic of Dominus Inferi2 in a way with the title track, Mater Larvarum. And it’s, without a doubt, the most powerful track of the whole set. Only, even this one failed to transmit much energy, darkly occult or otherwise, to this pack of reviewers.
But did the band really manage to right the ship to get to bigger and better things in the end? Well, it’s all in the eyes of the beholder. Mater Larvarum got promise, true. But the band didn’t quite exploit their full power to the max. Yet again, the album sails in on a solid production with remarkable variation at a few select spots. And it indeed contains some pretty good ideas to boot.
Ultimately, however, the band created a middle-of-the-road piece that avoids any uneven terrain like the Daemon would holy water. If we – yet again – compare this new record to the deliciously baroque power of Saturnalia, it’s just way too whitewashed to generate any widespread emotions at the RMR offices. Positive or negative. And mind you, Mater Larvarum would have all that unused power under the hood to kick it up a few notches. Only someone forgot to flip that switch. So, there’s not much horror in their metal this time. Let’s just hope they remedy that for the next round that’s sure to come.
Record Rating: 5/10 | Label: Scarlet Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 9 December 2022