To seldomly leave the comfortable four walls in order to attend a gig is still something I am extremely reticent to do, albeit there are indeed perfect storms that unerringly manage to lift my heavy ass from the couch. And to have Anatomia, which is my favorite current Death Metal band playing half an hour from home, with free ticket and trip, well, who am I to challenge the gods of Death?

Ossuary

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen Ossuary live before. I’ve definitely listened to a few tracks online, but as far as I can recall, it wasn’t an experience that left a lasting impression. When I entered the venue, the band had just started playing, and I grumbled a bit, overhearing some not-so-impressive screams over equally not-so-memorable music. However, once I settled in the back with a cold beer in hand, I have to admit, the overall experience wasn’t actually that bad.

Their intentions are honest and clear, and in line with their name: to recreate obsessive deathly chants, with an otherworldly, croaking voice drenched in reverb, layered over a cyclical and relentless backdrop typical of many Death/Doom approaches from recent years. On that level, the band works well, in my opinion. The vocalist truly seems possessed by some form of otherworldly force, and the thick layer of reverb they add to the dead’s agonized screams blends the sonic experience into an interesting package that, while not stylistically, reminds me of something like Tryptikon trapped in a never-ending maze of mirrors.

As a near-death experience, these Ossuary aren’t bad at all. Their only real problem is that there’s nothing riff-wise that sticks in your head, not a single moment when you could touch the beyond. This is only made worse by the fact that they’re touring with perhaps one of the very few bands that never miss a single great riff. While Ossuary doesn’t have it, the band coming up next certainly does. And boy, do they have it…

Anatomia

I might be biased when talking about this band because I have been respectfully obsessive about their works. A few might remember that they formed in a time when we did not have Autopsy and nobody really stood, apart from a couple of attempts on Razorback, to take the crown of the dead from the podium of the best Death Metal band around. Death Metal as in “ultimate form of extreme horror music”, I mean. The Death Metal that grabs you by the throat and licks your face with a rotting tongue.

Honestly, my grasp of the language is not solid enough to describe how Anatomia represents in my opinion the perfect embodyment of this genre, at the moment. Even thinking of an Autopsy-minus-Abscess formula doesn’t do complete justice because they have trascended that some time ago alrady. They just sit and drag you in a red and black japanese hell of grotesque deamons with bulging eyes, tearing flesh in endless SLOW agony. You don’t hear a band when you see them live, you experience a slow drag into a netherworld of pain. I don’t need words here, just listen to any tracks by this band, like this one that was on the split 7″ i released on my label in 2017, and hear how it is to have it, what you can do when you find the perfect formula.

I’m not sure if the choice of bands was intentional, but thinking about it on the way back, for once, I could see some sort of design of things. If the first band was the revelation of otherworldly horror, with Anatomia we reached the second act, where you’re taken straight into the depths of hell.