At first, the RMR crew thought we were getting yet another of them gnarly Italian Black Metal albums, such as this one. You know, the storytellers who describe features of the arid land they live in. And truly so, an abundance of tales and legends can be found throughout the Italian countryside.
Well, gnarly it’s going to be this time as well. But you won’t be getting any legends. Instead, it is war stories yet again, and more precisely, WWI, the first war of (modern) mass destruction of human history. Y’know, the one starting with cavalry trying to ride down machine guns and ending in an artillery fest. But I digress.
Catarsi, Duir called their latest record. A tale of blood and despair painted in starkly traditional Black Metal colors. But his time, the style didn’t venture too far North into the Scandinavian wastelands. Instead, you get a slice of metal that oscillates somewhere in between Ellende, Weltenbrandt, Waldgeflüster, and Sojourner. A delivery resembling the Austro-Bavarian Forest Metal gang better than the wicked ways of the Italian outback. And sure enough, Impeto features Ellende’s L.G.1 on guest vocals. And both, the latter and vocalist Vox in Umbra, kick up a feisty vocal duststorm that made us return to this track too many times. A track that sits straight in this tastily melodic yet nastily blackened metal fare, Duir‘s Northern brethren like to indulge in.
But there’s more. P.G.2 (Groza) worked the mastering buttons on Catarsi. He ain’t an unknown number over here, having made appearances on reviews of Agrypnie, Weltenbrandt, and Harakiri for the Sky. Yet another nail in this particular coffin. Now, this raises the terrible specter of stylish confusion. But none of this is audible on this record. Instead, you get the rough-hewn rasp, snarls, and raspy monologues typical of the Italian setting, together with the tastily concocted Black Metal. And that led to a pretty alluring mix that really caught our attention.
And yet. All of the above would have been a tad too austere and dry, were it not for the inclusion of tasty archaic instruments into the fray. You heard us mention Sojourner before, and this is where these guys come in. Flutes, bagpipes, Hurdy Gurdy, they’re all in there. They all sit somewhere in the middle of the mix. And that gives this whole concoction a somewhat voodoo-like and mystical flavor. An unholy and insanely tasty mélange of downturned glory basking in the darkly glowing light of almost overpowering atmospherics.
But, as always, records of this type are always prone to repetition. And Catarsi is no exception to this particular rule. The mix hits you with a relentless wall of sound at any given moment of the tracklist. And that creates the impression of a repetitive songwriting style – right or wrong – that may bore some of the ‘specialists’ out there.
In the end, however, Catarsi delivered as expected. This is rough, gritty fare with enough grime to last a lifetime. But then, just by looking at the description and who intervened in the pretty successful recording session, the RMR crew already had an inkling of where this was going. So, we found a somewhat predictable but well-written record that gave this crew its dose of Atmospheric Black Metal with enough mystical, folky touch to please the frazzled outcroppings of our delicate metal souls. There is a well-established balance of harsh metal and folk instruments that not many bands out there have managed to achieve so far.
In other words, Duir created a rock-solid record this time. However, to get to great levels next time, they’ll need to reaffirm their songwriting some more and up the ante to move outside of the beaten paths they’re operating on right now.
Just sayin’.
Record Rating: 7/10 | Label: AOP Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 26 June 2026