7th January 2021

Review: “Thálassa” by Delirant Chaotic Sound

An Alternative Metal band from Milan Italy, Delirant Chaotic Sound were forged in 2011 and took four years to find a stable line up to create the sound that they were looking for. Releasing their debut EP “The Ride Of Thanatos” in 2016 before a pair of stand alone singles, bassist Federico Medana, drummer Davide Silva, guitarists Stefano D’Ambra and Daniel Tanzer as well as male and female vocal pairing of Marco Boccotti and Alice Grupallo have finally created a debut album in “Thálassa” that has been a long time coming. Recorded and mixed by Phaser Studio and mastered by 16th Cellar Studio, as the cover art depicts, in Greek mythology, “Thálassa” was the primeval spirit of the sea…

Those two stand alone singles in “Dogma” and “Alone In Vein” don’t make the album with the band choosing instead to start over with eight brand new cuts to test us. The curious thing is thing is that the band have tagged themselves Alternative Metal when the opening onslaught of “Embrace This Relief” sounds not to far away from Melodic Death Metal while also embracing some Progressive Metal touches, but what’s in a genre tag?. Boccotti spits pure unclean vocal venom in stark contrast to Grupallo who brings the melodic touches and sounds not too far away from Tarja Turunen in her Nightwish days. The band play with light and shade, building up the grooves and dropping them down in a way which demonstrates dedication to their song writing craft as they keep their transitions very clean. “Empty Shell” was one of pre-release singles and sees and intertwining of the male and female vocals for the first time with an underpinning of synths that don’t rise to the surface as much as they perhaps could but that helps build a certain epic grandeur which is something that all the songs hold. Tribal drums that lead into blast beats and some polyrhythmic bass lines bring in “Ropes I Hold“, which continues the lyrical narrative in introspection but crucially finds better balance between the vocal pairing. When they bring in an almost DJent closing and Boccotti delivers punishing Deathcore gutturals it’s almost as if the band have a split personality, the range of stylings within their sound is jaw dropping.

The melodic “Steal My Sight Away” has a certain sense of schizophrenia to it with the the unclean vocals roaring over the first half of a song that could so easily have not had them at all in a chase for a more commercial sound. Grupallo’s beautiful cleans are the antidote to the unclean poison, the beauty to Boccotti’s beast and she dominates this soul destroyer of a song that raises a clenched fist in anger at broken relationships. Again the key is balance and neither vocalist feels in place for the sake of it, they each play a vital part in the sound and dynamic. The third and final single “Annihilation” is a another about running away from inner demons and seeking a way out of the damnation within. A longer cut, it shows off some progressive leanings musically with a final couple of minutes of melodic riff development that creates the effect of a calm after a storm as the dark clouds move away. Those oceanic themes mentioned in the album title lurk just beneath the surface of each track, something that helps with the flow of the record and knits together the concept neatly.

The funky Tech-Metal bass and vocals on “Washed Ashore” are surprisingly reminiscent of Jinjer with an almost ethnic feel in places before the run away Metalcore gallop and face melter of a solo in the final third that makes for a stand out moment in an album of impressive material from a multifaceted band. Title track “Thálassa” builds atmosphere with moments of achingly beautiful melody that play out into some sea monster esq powerful chugged rhythms. The choice of an instrumental for this is certainly an interesting move but to have one of such cinematic quality is spellbinding before the powerhouse finale that is “A New Breath“. Another one that flows seamlessly between Metal sub-genres in Gravity defying ways, it encompasses the diversity of the album in a single piece of music that beggars belief. Each segment has been constructed so you get orchestral like movements within the instrumental sections until a gargantuan beast of a breakdown that can be felt at the bottom of the Mariana trench [8/10]

Track listing