Hypnotic by design and increasingly clever in the nagging cadence of their fuzz-ground stoner/doom metal craft Coronda, Argentina-based trio Fulanno turn the gloom back on for a fourth and most infernal full-length album. Now thirteen years into their satanic-panicked sojourn and no longer too baked to carry a tune these fellowes steer their ship back toward the tenebrous with ‘Ruido Infernal‘, a heavier launch of a still unrepentantly stoney yet matured undertaking. Expect simple yet effective doom metal with its bluesy treads engaged, all songcraft upgraded, and all six pairs of eyeballs rolled all the way into the back of their heads.

Fulanno officially formed as a trio circa 2010 taking a number of years to prepare their first public recordings which’d inarguably fallen into the realm of dark psychedelic/stoner doom metal on ‘Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres‘ (2016), a loud and raw debut originally released on CD-r per their own Juana Records imprint/studio. Slow n’ low slugged riffs, a blunted and slightly phased bass guitar tone, and closed-eye visual ready vocals all spoke to a particularly minimal yet effective drone to start. When I’d given very brief review of the album upon reissue in 2021 I’d said clear enough “Fans of relatively stripped down psychedelic doom who’re still in touch with 2000’s fuzz-dripping sound design will appreciate this one, minimal and punishing but not droning to the point of sleep.” That’d been the template and they weren’t showing signs of any greenhorn amateurism at that point beyond the recording quality which’d been fixed on the growling drone of their second LP (‘Velas Negras‘, 2018). At that point it was clear they’d some vague love for a certain era of Electric Wizard but still sustained an entirely consistent tone and pace for most of the album, strumming along with plenty of the bluesy psychedelic rock drawn leads that’d helped to keep their debut interesting beyond the sea of murk. From the first listen of that second album I’d particularly enjoyed the band’s focus on gloom-toned, gutted sounds which’d been their most profoundly doomed touch at that point. The best aspects of ‘Ruido Infernal‘ echo the heady glowering tone of their second record to some degree.

The effect of listening to Fulanno is hard to miss and simple enough wherein the unique cadence of their occult and foreboding Spanish sung lyrics present a freaked out, possessed mood which has become increasingly connective with each record. Your results may vary if you don’t speak or know any Spanish but I’d not felt like they used enough slang or colloquialisms that anyone with a couples years study couldn’t pick up on all the evil, the possession and the supernatural horrors otherwise; Fulanno kept the fuzz hot and the mood low on album number three (‘Nadie está a salvo del mal‘, 2020) but there was a distinct whiff of stoner-sided buzz, more leads and pacing which stepped out of their moon-based bubble into more of a jammed and varietal set of moods. It’d definitely felt like the band were prepared to evolve thanks to a growing set of creative voices in the Argentinian stoner/doom metal scene (Mephistofeles, The Black Furs, et al.) who’ve likewise continued to evolve in strange and depraved ways. Instead of heading deeper into the blues rock and lax jammed feeling of their third album ‘Ruido Infernal‘ rides out with their fuzzed doom balls out, sticking to the low and rumbling riffs found on their first couple of releases while focusing on songcraft, finding a more tuneful vocal cadence in every case while constructing more complex voicing to their rhythms. The balance of easing back toward a minimal sound while sophisticating the songs themselves ultimately reads as follow-up to the successes of ‘Velas Negras‘, lining up with what I’d liked best about the band.

The buried lede, the hidden hand, the thing that might not be all that obvious stepping into this humming and buzzing world is that ‘Ruido Infernal‘ not only smacks of a light stoner metal kick and trades in traditional doom metal meat but that vocalist/guitarist Fila Frutos has gotten a realm grip upon creating haunting vocal melodies within each of these pieces, not emulating the old Sabbathian touch so much as using the verbose lean of the romance language (Spanish) the same way Italian doom metal bands often shake off their deadpan, Paul Chain coming to mind first. Instead of borrowing too directly from the cadence of English sung melodies often found in stoner/doom metal words line up with riffs in a way which is natural. The guitar effects-burning dredge of “El Vilo Eterno” is the simplest example of this accentuation and “Vampiros Psiquicos” the most impressive.

Again, these aren’t mold breakers or mind bending riffcraft but when given the right voice Fulanno‘s work becomes all the more memorable, haunting and hypnotic when left on repeat. I’d found myself in a horror-hammer limbo each time I’d put this record on and couldn’t seem to escape the vexing repetition used on mid-album pieces “Sacrificio de los Fieles” and “Nuevo Orden Satanico”, spells in any other medium that’d rounded out the very strong, unbroken hum of Side A. The last three pieces on the album are no less engaging, more even, as the phrasing of “Rituales Paganos” hinted at more typical psychedelic doom and the impressive construction of closer “Engendros De Las Sombras” felt like a mountain to climb at the end of a foggy dream. Anyhow, everything aligned for these folks this time around as they took the best elements of their prior two full-lengths and wrote some of their best work to date in the process while catching the right mood with the album art, too. A moderately high recommendation.

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