Carrying a laurel crown and knife in hand alongside a burning question of worthiness for the future generations of the declining “western” world Modena, Italy-based avant-garde black metal quintet LAETITIA IN HOLOCAUST posit the potential of a future void of distinct culture and purpose on this accomplished fifth full-length album. Progressive extreme music is either righteously uninteresting or mislabeled without notable provenance, some manner of history containing adaptation as well as steadfast qualities which read as values exercised or genetic expressions which carry over throughout time. In the case of ‘Fanciulli d’Occidente‘ the values and mindset which’ve carried their work through time bears the mark of a progressive-yet-aggressive modus marked by a misanthropic, challenging personae.

Laetitia in Holocaust formed circa 2001 between bassist/guitarist N. and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist S. who were inspired by a general admixture of death metal and black metal to produced a couple of classics-leaning black metal demos to start. At least that is how they’d described the unusual style of their second demo (‘A Slow Apocalypse‘, 2004) for its affected atmosphere and electro beat infused sound. Keep in mind this is an underground black metal band who saw the peak-and-fall of the MySpace biome and not the easier Bandcamp bubble a decade later. Second wave Norwegian black metal (Mayhem‘s “weirder” side in particular) was a big part of their own connection to metal but nearby creatives in Aborym and Spite Extreme Wing seem to have had some impact as well as they’d stretched into view with their first of two self-produced, recorded and released albums with ‘The Tortoise Boat‘ (2009). If you see the band compared to Ved Buens Ende or such is is likely due to that album’s meticulously strummed clean guitar driven form of black metal where the lack of distortion reveals the rattling bones of a bedroom level muse on their own fundamental abstraction of classic forms, most of it it nonsensical yet aggressive and beauteous in its reach. The gist of those early years before an extended hiatus was intentional unconventional black metal, a reach for something unheard-of and obscene which might define their sound.

The duo found a stable drummer in Marcello Mangioli (Blood of Seklusion, Hateful) around 2017 and immediately took their original idea into a more concrete headspace, creating something substantive out of this new dimensional addition per their third full-length album (‘Fauci tra fauci‘, 2019) which I’d given short review of at the time of release. In hindsight the folken guitar progressions and their dance through them with a now pronounced an virtuosic touch on N.‘s bass performances made for a sentimental experience and a surprisingly coherent return from the grave. The industrial black metal feeling of their work was washed away and a more sophisticated, refined vision had been realized at that point. For my own taste it was probably their most engaging work to date, a welcome eclipse of their greater paradigm realized though not their most eclectic overall, and it seems there was no escaping the comparison to Spite Extreme Wing from there as we stepped into the frantic, highly dramatic realms of their follow-up (‘Heritage‘, 2020) a year later. That’d serve the most obvious precedence for what they’ve developed here with ‘Fanciulli d’Occidente‘ as their increasingly eclectic set of song types and structures meets up with pronounced fretless bass guitar work and anything but classicist black metal tropes.

A record in this style from a band containing years of ambitious development surrounding its various modes and points of interest naturally takes some time to either sink in, repeatedly confuse, or repulse and I believe I’d gone through each of those stages of acceptance in reverse order to start. Much as I’d liked about the racing thoughts and interruptive flourishes of opener “Celestial and Buried” I’d almost immediately decided to jet back into their discography for some additional context, clues as to what I should be looking for that might make sense of the unsteady tonality of those opening moments. Guitar arrangements turned out to be the most reasonable place to start as the human element of a drummer and the innovation of fretless bass guitar warmth came later on in their evolution, so, in many respects the album opening is a show of strength, finesse and the many facets of their character at present capability which is in direct extension of the ambitions of ‘Heritage‘. Otherwise it is a ranting, hobbling, and surprisingly fluid event which has elements of post-black and blackened death driving its motions and if there are points of inspiration taken from outside of heavy metal’s greater umbrella of extremity, I’ve missed it up front. “Earth as a Furnace” is far more readable, palatable in general per its melodious fluxion of riffcraft in elaborately scaling phrases which quick-change their direction throughout in generating a frothy sensation of progressive yet melodic black metal tautness. This is also where the bass guitar work and the ‘heavy metal’ inspiration of the project have some shared relevance, making for a piece which has a nigh 90’s dark metal spirit to its statement.

In the span of several focused listening sessions most of ‘Fanciulli d’Occidente‘ appeared exciting enough, eventful and fastidiously crafted in most aspects, yet when it came time to take a closer ear to the vocal performances that lingering Norwegian black metal inspired touch finds them a bit lost and croaking in the midst of the rest of the action, getting swallowed by the storm of a song like “Murmurs of Faith” without matching any of the finesse applied elsewhere. Of course this’d change from song to song depending on how the vocalist’s oeuvre met the challenge of narration, or, with none at all via extended instrumental songs “Julivs Caesar Germanicvs” and “A Dancestep of Fate”. The only song that had me questioning my interest overall was certain verses in the first half of “Devotio” which are simply wretched and either way, this isn’t at all a crime in the realm of black metal.

When Laetitia in Holocaust hits on this album they really deliver something special, particularly on “From Ploughshares to Swords” where the riffs keep flying and the build towards a kicking fast speed seems to be their most sweet spot for producing intricate, strident progressive metal rhythms. While I wouldn’t say that this album persists at a headspace which is always well above average, for example the long instrumental pieces aren’t all that engaging, but when they do strike a higher standard it’d built enough interest that I’d returned to this album an unexpected number of times. While I don’t know that I’d built any sentimental attachment to ‘Laetitia d’Occidente’ it was entertaining to a considerable degree and seemed to make great sense in terms of where they’d built up their sound in the 2000’s and continue their evolutionary path beyond 2019. A moderately high recommendation.

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