Progenie Terrestre Pura – starCross Review

FAST RITES: because sometimes brevity is fundamental.

As they did after their first LP, Italy’s industrial/black metal/sci-fi wizards Progenie Terrestre Pura have followed up the monstrous oltreLuna with an EP. But in contrast to the purely ambient Asteroidi, starCross brings the metal. In fact, starCross includes some of PTP’s most overtly riffy material, while still managing to stuff a pretty significant amount of variety within about 30 minutes.

Following a bleepy-bloopy intro, “Toward a Distant Moon” brings riffs that could translate right into black/thrash with a total overhaul of the production, while landing with some serious bombast at times and female vocal chants that may or may not have been made by a human. The eerie “Twisted Silhouette,” meanwhile, disorients with stretches of spoken word and electronic noise, strange rhythmic choices, and all the other stuff that makes one think of losing control of your vac suit while doing routine ship maintenance. “The Greatest Loss” then maintains the weirdness while picking the band’s beat-ridden electro-riffy metal up a bit, only to see the extended outro offer some nightmarish sounds prior to resolution in the form of holy-sounding chants. Resolution, but not comfort; that was probably a funeral.

Overall, starCross isn’t as sprawling in scope or style as oltreLuna (very understandable), but it is another supremely fun release from one of the more imaginative acts in metal today.

 

Release date: June 20, 2018. Label: Avantgarde Music.