REVIEW: Formalist – We Inherit a World at the Seams

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FORMALIST is a doom-sludge 4-piece act founded in Italy back in 2014, whose second album, “We Inherit a World at the Seams,” was published on May 25th, 2023, via Brucia Records. The lineup includes some big names in the Italian underground metal scene, such as Ferdinando HM Marchisio [FORGOTTEN TOMB, MACABRE IDOLATRY] on vocals, Michele Basso [VISCERA///, MALASANGRE, THE END OF SIX THOUSAND YEARS] on guitar, Riccardo Rossi [MALASANGRE] on drums and electronics, and Marcello Groppi as a new entry on bass. The package is pretty solid, as much as their music, which can be concisely described as slow, heavy, extreme, and utterly disturbing.

Starting from the cover artwork, which was censored on social media due to displaying the image of Japanese author Yukio Mishima while committing ritual suicide, FORMALIST’s second offering shows right away its straightforward and harsh attitude, also brilliantly summarized in the title itself.

“We Inherit a World at the Seams” is a 44-minute-long journey into the darkest crevices of suffering, here depicted as a deep-rooted human condition none can ever get rid of. The 3-track formula is not new to the band, as their previous album, “No One will Shine Anymore,” released in 2018, showed the same number of songs, but if compared to their first opus, these three tunes seem to be gloomier, heavier, more complex and a bit longer. An underlying yet quite evident influence of American drone-doom supergroup KHANATE is undeniable, even though I have to say that FORMALIST do have a strong personal touch, also thanks to HM’s unique voiceprint, who took care of writing the lyrics. He moreover composed the music of “Monuments” in partnership with guitarist Michele Basso. It is worth mentioning that all the band members do cooperate in the songwriting process, which is, in my opinion, a creditable thing.

The opening tune, “Warfare,” is a despair-infused hymn to the loss of hope, where an obsessive rhythm section and nightmarish guitar riffs work as a perfect foundation for HM’s gut-wrenching screams. A clever use of words and the literary devices used in the lyrics do also empower a sense of cyclical and unavoidable suffering: “Pain on repeat – Repeating the pain / Blaming retreat – Retreating the blame”. A drone-like interlude with massive guitar feedback sounds exactly like in a sleep paralysis episode, brutally interrupted by HM’s screams that seem to come straight from a horror movie. 

Second track “Monuments” is likely to be considered the band’s manifesto, as it embeds all the features that make FORMALIST who and what they are as a musical entity for the time being. The tune is infused with terror from the very first note, as both guitar and bass build a solid structure for a spoken-word part that sounds like it came from loudspeakers in a time of war, but the aim is not to warn people and keep them safe, it is rather a clear sign of awareness of a looming and unavoidable apocalypse.

A slow yet relentless drum pace, along with a slamming bassline and dissonant guitars enhance a suffocating sense of fear, as a perfect frame for HM‘s chant: “Ghosts of our youth won’t help the blind to see / Ghosts of our fathers won’t save us from what’s out there.” The third part of the song shows a massive guitar riff, as straightforward and bare as it can be, which leads to an invitation to the listeners to, “Come with me / Behold the tides that darken the sun / Slaves to the grey skies / We inherit a world at the seams.” Dissonant guitars and feedbacks again, along with lacerating screams and a hypnotic rhythm section lead to the end of this journey, and I can assure that there is no damned light at the end of the tunnel…

Consisting of almost 16 minutes of utter darkness, “Selfish” is the closing tune on this album. After a monologue in French about loneliness and death, which comes from the movie Seul contre tous, (released as I Stand Alone in English-speaking countries), the main guitar melody takes over and its funereal vibe does say a lot about how rich and multilayered FORMALIST’s songwriting skills are. Some industrial-like noises and a solid bass line lead the way to a quite discomforting statement: “To be alive is a selfish act,” which totally got under my skin and recurs as a ruthless mantra, in HM’s iconic and unmistakable style.

FORMALIST’s aim seems to be to describe human nature in its rawest and scariest form, completely naked and stripped down, without any comforting filter. Well, they nailed it, as hopelessness and anguish do really flow through their music and hit the listeners like a punch in the gut. Of course, it must be taken as a compliment, because “We Inherit a World at the Seams” is, without a doubt, a stunning monument to the pain of living.

Written by Licia Mapelli

Tracklist

  1. Warfare
  2. Monuments
  3. Selfish

Lineup

Ferdinando HM Marchisio – Vocals

Michele Basso – Guitars & Electronics

Marcello Groppi – Bass

Riccardo Rossi – Drums & Electronics

Label

Brucia Records

Links

Facebook
Bandcamp
Spotify