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Il lato oscuro di "The Gallery".
In estrema sintesi si potrebbe così riassumere questo "The Mind's I", terzo full lenght rilasciato per la francese Osmose con il quale i cinque svedesi, prima di tramutarsi in sestetto operare una svolta stilistica nel proprio sound, cercano di bissare il successo riscosso dal già citato "The Gallery", ancora oggi da annoverare tra i masterpiece dell'allora nascente Gothenburg sound.
Chi si aspettava un "The Gallery 2" resterà tuttavia deluso: se infatti da un lato permangono le coordinate stilistiche del genere che loro stessi hanno contribuito a plasmare, dall'altro in quest'occasione i nostri mostrano di predligere un approccio molto più scarno e "in your face" rispetto alla grandeur e a lla varietà compositiva che aveva caratterizzato il precedente platter.
Nascono così canzoni dirette e potentissime come "Zodijackyl Light" o "Hedon" (a cui prende parte anche Anders Friden dei cugini In Flames) in cui la batteria di Jivarp detta i tempi (velocissimi) sui quali le chitarre di Sundin e Johansson macinano riff al limite del thrash e Stanne vomita la sua rabbia racchiusa in testi come sempre tutt'altro che immediati.
Sulle stesse coordinate si muovono anche le tiratissime "Scythe, Rage and Roses" e "Dissolution Factor Red" (quattro minuti di durata in due), nel mezzo delle quali si trova la più dilatata "Constant", caratterizzata da atmosfere vicine a quelle che avevano fatto la fortuna del precedente album.
Qualche richiamo al passato recente della band è ravvisabile anche nella successiva e suggestiva "Insanity's Crescendo": introdotta da delicati vocalizzi femminili e da un ottimo arpeggio, la settima traccia si sviluppa secondo un climax emotivo e musicale che raggiunge il suo apice nelle urla davvero catartiche di uno Stanne mai così ispirato, accompagnate da un riffing che ci riporta ai fasti di "Punish My Heaven" e "Lethe".
Si torna poi a premere sull'acceleratore con "Atom Heart 243.5" in cui il biondo singer sfoggia una prova vocale maiuscola, ben supportato dal resto della band che viaggia compatta come un treno ad altissima velocità, almeno fino al rallentamento ritmico di "Tidal Tantrum" che ci regala un attimo di quiete prima che tornia a scatenarsi la tempesta sonora di "Tongues".
La title-track strumentale chiude in bellezza un disco che, soprattutto se paragonato al suo illustre predecessore, risulta per certi versi controverso in virtù di una formula compositiva eccessivamente votata all'aggressività a scapito della raffinatezza melodica, raffinatezza che non a caso la band stessa tornerà a seguire a partire dal successivo, e altrettanto discusso, "Projector".
Nonostante tutto comunque "The Mind's I" merita ancora oggi di essere (ri)scoperto dai fan vecchi e nuovi della band, in virtù di un lotto di canzoni davvero valide avvolte in una patina dal fascino oscuro, grazie anche ad un artwork particolarmente ispirato (non a caso realizzato con fotocamere HASSELBLAD, ovvero quanto di più lontano rispetto alla computer graphic che farà la fortuna della Cabin Fever di Sundin negli anni a venire) e alla sempre valida produzione dei rinomati Fredman Studios, vera e propria fucina di capolavori dello Swedish Death.
Elenco tracce testi e samples
01 Dreamlore Degenerate (02:44)
For thou sweepst me
in thy ribe if guill
with garments forged
in spiteful steel
No tainted pride
shall make conviction cease
None shall be unto thee proven
worthy of thy outmost fear
Let alone the silent longing
instinct shun the ones you dear
As the hunter boldly stalks his prey
intoxicated
Conviction reigns where truth might sway
intimidated
Silence the bore
Shun the ones you dear
The hunt is over
so the feast begins
What feast is enduring
when all is said and done
Everchange of hearts
The hunter's reason fail
The hunt is treason
The hunt is over
so the feast begins
Why search for endurance
when all is said and done?
02 Zodijackyl Light (03:59)
Crown the impulse that deliberately fall
Defeat in spiritless action
Isolation - burn the greenwood
Order of the vertical path
Descendent
Crawl in the remnants of one thousand lies
Restaging
Torching a world that was left behind
Zodiackyl light
Cross the sharpest void
Deride the embers of his faith
The bringer that on million horses ride
Waiting for the call within the spark of sin
Ever reminiscent of the coming of storm
Can you see the cosmic face in which disorder lies
Burning of opression
The inventor
Is the killing hand
Be that of the darkest sin
To frustrate hope and love
I shall not be blinded
I shall not be forced
Resistance
Feasting on debris from celestical wars
Burning in the sky
Beyond the realm of time
Sequence of the nucleus
The glowing dust in flight
Zodijackal light
And they ride, they ride
The drama takes the lead
The beast of heaven their guide
Racing through the vastness
Constellation disarray
That darkness could not have existed
That bares no witness to the light
Sweet endless
Perpetually pronge through interior vaults
So seamless
Joints of time cannot shackle the beast
Zodijackyl light
03 Hedon (05:37)
Enter Suicidal Angels;
How hungry we've become;
like animals naked in shame
Fed with the hooves of apocalypse
that galloped down, disordered worlds behind
From word to a word, I was led to a word
that spanned over cultures in rage
Crimson masses, steeped in decadence
holding our tongues to the thirsty sun
So, is the future still open?
Then enter, hornet, from our hive-dark hearts
to draw down the end from within
We need not the horns
that emanate from our warty, haunted bodes
(Severed and numbered they are)
Nihilist, Hedon
the priceless art of their lives
Sorrow is a wing laid atop their heads.
Skin deep,
we carve our immeasurable sorrow
in the fold of your shivering arms
Hedon,
Your chindren wild
and filled with death
Jupiter in our unforgiving eves:
a pandemonium of bodies and gold
Eager, as a part of your face
and the sickness attached to your skin (stone)
as the wine-rush,
charging from androgynous wombs
to open free the lid of pain
Hedon,
rinsed in post-human shadows
a monument scorned by the teeth of time
Stale-faced keeper of secrets,
loaded with implosive fire
The whore that carried the apostle
to the mating point on the graves of giants
We look at you, afraid
to see what we really are.
04 Scythe, Rage and Roses (02:33)
Fast fading roses
Non-lingering words
Scythe be my instrument
Through dreams I now rage
No guidance is me offered
No forgiveness thee I promised
Now can distance be a factor
when engraved in me thou art?
Nourished by the soul my flame
shall serve to torch the heart
Denial serves me
That fire cannot burn
with flames of no origin
That star cannot bring guidance
without force or form
One is darkness
The other silence
Without silence the darkness
looses its splendour
Sweet bliss that sleep now giveth
tempt with forgetful night
Ever haunting that image within
swear to the answers denied
05 Constant (03:02)
With each daring new concept
creation and form
one fragment of shelter
from heaven be torn
The bleeding through barriers
shine of redemption
The taste of renewal
let art once again be a weapon
The whim of the forger is theft from the flow
the hatchet now redden with creation's blood
Constant is forever
I am the creation
so bold in design
The errors of one thousand minds
bleed out through a world gone blind
This is the magic that a name would stain.
06 Dissolution Factor Red (02:07)
Drenched in the perfume of hell
Impasto of burning oils
forming continents on my
outstretched naked body,
erupting
crimson
stains of shame
stains of shame
Limbs that leave their Nests of Red
to spin the reels of pain
Attach the nails and electrodes
and spin the reels again
Retreating hunger running through the years
carries the scorn on skeleton wings
Storm me thou with the sharpened claw
swift hammer nails that pierce the shoulder of
time
Behind the sunset, with movement regained
For there lie shadows even farther from the light
I run, devoid of mation,
devoid of name
attach the nails and electrodes
black moratorium, haven of refuge
07 Insanity's Crescendo (06:52)
Gently hold our heads
gently hold our heads on high
Aimless time in fear new hide
overthrow the plan
confusion lies in all my words
mad is the soul
We barricade ourselves in holes of temperament
this is the dawning of a new age
A heart that beats the wrong way
insanity's crescendo
Windcolour - second sight
a touch of silence and the violence of dark
Illusion span - the aroma of time
shadowlife and the scent of nothingness
Infinite fall of instinct
order of one spells deceit
Infinite lack of trust
order of one obsolete
Oh escaping time is all we lost ahead?
When it's found, can judgement make amends?
From force-fed impressions
let us mortify the mind
each soul to violate
each instinct to be rendered false
Torn asunder be the conventional forms and frames
now for the blood of heaven
Unlearn and the cleansing comes
Fell a tremor in the pillars of the senses
Cursed victim of a distance near
The first dreams - the clearest vision
Aimlessly steer towards our night
we belong to thee
Oh dearest bliss, unnerving silence
entangled within
Dimly begotten in clarity found
virginlike tears for impurity bound
Beseech he who darken the stars and the sky
to greet now this vision an emerald dawn
Empty the sun - carve out the wind
Insanity's crescendo
tear out the blinded eye
Lament of thunder - take comfort in fear
lightning veins in crude exterior
Voice the oppression - voice the hypocrisy
lay down the law that made instince fall
Escape now and revert
this cleansing rebirth
torn asunder be
Affect me not; darkened vision
insanity's crescendo
Grimly tread the footsteps torn
rebellious stand the seeker tall
The thorn of insanity's hand
take this darkened vision from my sight
Nailed to the image of ignorance
Each soul to violate
for the blood of heaven
08 Still Moving Sinews (04:41)
[Music: Sundin, Johansson]
[Words: Sundin, Stanne]
No-one survives such an attack
and we all stood like monuments
baring the nails in her back
Still moving sinews
in a graceful impression of life
shyly the arms, shyly the breasts
fold fear die
Ten fingers driven
through the heart, through the core
as I stare into those strange, magnetic eyes
and wonder: (for you / me)
are there demons there?
I knew it all the time.
The misanthropes were right
to crucify themselves
in the need of a saviour.
Still moving sinews struggle fearsome
with a lifeline forlorn,
caught in the nest
of the impending dark fate.
Semi-worlds, lifetight lodges
where faces stiffen,
plagued with the frost of disease
Our capsules barely meet
The worms of disorder
like living black numbers
that drip from her pergament skin
Joined in sweet fury
to anoint the decay
fragile and reddened in lifelost array
10 Tidal Tantrum (02:57)
Come death of dearling
the claws of the raven hold fast
Enticed and starving
a lustful revenge to the last
Unlight flood the seeker's eye
Come flame or false hope
gifted in spirit as I
Forced upon freedom
Let impulse nor stillness be spared
Fierce tidal tantrum
nourishing rapture within
Come feast or fire
repellent in forceful defence
Unchained, forgiving to none
solemn in swirling embrace
11 Tongues (04:53)
Tongues, lost in me
yours be the sharp and the vile
Glide neath my skin
storm through my nerves
I bury the nomad years
hours in the earth
couldn't exorcise these searing, pecking tongues
Immune you say
yet venom strikes in strangest guises
as the viper in our eyes
Tongue, throat, tongue
slayer of the word and stealer of wisdom
A monumental reign of terrors
throats slit up to stain the target
We're food for the hounds of trauma,
prey to the crows of stress
No power left to retrieve my stolen language
filtered through the illiterate fingers of death
Flies
let sickness be poured
from the cupped hands of bedlam
On account of their brightness
I made friends with the word and the moon
went with the tide and left for the sound
of dead instruments thrown out of tune
The red square patterns, dragonrise and
evenclaw
decoying from pandemonic symmetry
Let ring
a dissonant note in the music of the spheres
the streak of promise in the nuclear sky
These whipping black tongues
aching to lick me back to life
to inject their truths within me
13 Razorfever (03:15)
Born of laughter
strangled by sin
No remorse
mistreat the soul again
No features
the blur of things denied
No return
the cross to bear is my own
Just one sip and life returns
Razorfever
The pollution of your narrow perception
Read into the lines of men's work
Degeneration: let the truth be known
Numb the pain with the liquid of fire
Razorfever burns
Born a desperation's child
admist the last descent
Fierce as that of angel's wrath
to lay the soul to rest
Just one sip
Just one more
Just one
and so my world can be restored.
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