I was not familiar with this artist and the frog artwork did not give much indication of what I was in for, so I put the disc in and hit play. I like hearing the music on its own terms without any preconceived notions. Afterwards, I read the press sheet. Daniele Brusaschetto hails from Turin Italy and the press sheet states that “The new album ties and expands the tropes of the former Flying Stag, hammering even more along the lines of the incandescent lineage of Voivod, Godflesh and early Mastodon. Tracks built in the last 5 years, existentialism, melancholy, daily apocalypse, on-sense, delirium and irony. Granite enriched by the mist of new / no wave, from which the echo of sudden melody emerges, a sort of emotional industry, to uncover beyond the wall of guitars.”

Like most people with a Y and an X chromosome that grew up in the '80s, I too had my metal phase. As such, this album was kind of nostalgic in that it seems to evoke that kind of feel. Brusachetto plays it pretty straight, and by that I mean there's not a lot of distortion or effects, and the voice is relatively unprocessed and non-screaming. Generally, Chain D.L.K. does not review straight metal or hard rock, and more often than not when I am reviewing something with a guitar, drills and other power tools are also involved. This isn't industrial metal like Ministry, or even coldwave stuff like Chemlab. Rather, this is pretty straightforward hard rock. The only inkling of experimentalism is found in “Petra,” which serves more as an interlude. Still, they sent it so I'm going to give my thoughts on it. To me the standout track on here is “Coal Woods,” which is a lovely piece that really showcases the compositional skill of this artist. You could almost think of it as several movements within the same track. The other tracks are quite nice as well and for those of you who speak Italian, you have a couple of tracks just for you. The music is well done and manages to avoid many of the cliches of hard rock and metal. The lyrics have a poetic feel to them which is sometimes lacking in hard rock music. In short, if you're looking for some hard rock with a little bit of a prog feel to it this is certainly worth checking out.