?Classics? of power metal #2: ADRAMELCH - Irae Melanox (1988), upon further review

I know music is a business and that it couldn't work this way... but I kinda wish there were a way to guarantee everyone two chances.  Sure, some artists have one great record in them and then are done ever being interesting once they're tasked with cranking out more on short notice, but so many others have the raw materials without the seasoning that they'd need to make a masterpiece.  Many of my favorites didn't hit their stride until record #2, or #3, or even later.  It usually takes time and experience to develop a signature sound and/or sort out what exactly it is that you're good at and/or cultivate a fanbase.  I love having access to first efforts by future legends, watching them figure it out.  In my perfect fantasy world, there'd be some mechanism for those who're interesting to get multiple shots to find an audience.*

In the actual world, you get artists like Adramelch releasing a record that's weird, a little different, and if the flash doesn't bounce of the pan just right, they don't really find an audience and they then break up shortly after releasing their debut.  And Irae Melanox is indeed a little weird, a little off kilter.  

 

Trying to make sense of what someone is trying to accomplish, poring over either the opening track or the title track is usually a pretty good bet.  So, "Irae Melanox," the song.  The first major element is a chugging riff that'd be right at home with any melodic metal style.  NWOBHM is the first subgenre that comes to my mind, although I'm assured that despite Adramelch being based in Milan, the closest thing that existed at the time is "US power metal."  In any case, it sounds closer to Maiden relative to the "EuroPower" style with which I'm more familiar.  Then the vocals come in.  Although I'm not clear on the exact distribution of the vocal duties - in fact, an earlier version of this post called Gianluca rather than Vittorio the lead singer - my basic assumption will be that I'm hearing one guy most of the time.  Vittorio's performance is a thoroughly mixed bag throughout the record, and never more so than on this particular song.  At first, he's pleasantly mid-range but doing a mournful wailing thing that seems to have little to do with the instrumentation underneath.  Then we flip over to the chorus, or whatever you call the bit that's all "nayel-ed bodies on a burning cross [DAdadadada, dadadadada]," and the whole thing clicks a little better, ensuring that "Irae Melanox" will be one of the better songs on the record for me.  When the second chorus is over and the song hits 3:30, making it time to prog it up, they focus on sinister soundscapes, and even the inevitable guitar solo is about the chord progression rather than pure wankery.  The fact that our vocalist is pretty far from strongest singer I've ever heard when attempting to hit high notes ("the world has lost its waaaaaay!") is not bad enough to drag down the song.  The themes established then seem a natural fit for the fade into mournful hymnal chanting that brings the song to a natural conclusion... oh, and then there's also a minute of extra riffing that doesn't go anywhere or add anything.  

What I'm trying to convey here is that I do not think that "Irae Melanox" is a perfect song, nor even a great one, but it is both pretty good and exciting.  This is the sound of an exuberant young band dripping with potential.  They probably could stand some self discipline, as long as it doesn't get in the way of their passion.  Much like the record bearing its name, "Irae Melanox" has lots of good things about it whilst as a whole not sounding quite like anything/one else.  Hard not to respect the ambition.  Less successful (for me) tracks like "Zephirus" at least aren't generic or unimaginative.  That one starts with a nice harmonic off-kilter riff - a uniquely melancholy take on "power metal."  Then unfortunately the vocals start and do not appear to be in the same key as the guitars, or indeed in any recognizable key at all, setting up six fairly tedious minutes as random musical ideas of varying quality flit in and out of the song with little rhyme or reason that's obvious to me.  But at least they're trying!  I'm getting less meticulously crafted prog than youthful energy, as their actual music struggles, not always successfully, to keep up with the racing thoughts that make up the band's musical vision.

What exactly this vision is seems to be this combination of galloping riffage, multi-toned vocals, and songs that take inspiration from the less glorious elements of medieval society - oppressive religion and class inequality, so lots of churches and peasants and human-generated evil.  One thing that a more seasoned band might lean into that this unseasoned band barely touches is the use of not only woah-oh-oh vocal parts, but a few bits that go full chant with the vocal harmonies, like a choir of monks.  The end of "Was Called Empire" is the most obvious example of what that sounds like with the band playing at full force.  This twist on the metal formula could have really reinforced the vibe I think they're trying for - heavy metal drifting from the ruins of a gothic cathedral.  Instead, as I say, they go to that well only sparingly, and stand out less than they could from the pack of, I guess, "USPM" as a result.

As a relative neophyte to this scene, I haven't nailed down quite what USPM is exactly.  But you know which band came to mind most often as a comparison point whilst listening to Irae Melanox?  Well, I didn't mention it in my intro post about my PM experience, but by far the dumbest band with whom I've ever been obsessed, to whom I've devoted dozens of hours of listening time, multiple spins through their entire ridiculously appealing discography, and so on, is Iced Earth.**  In my head I always sorted IE as a '90s take on the '80s Maiden-worshipping American thrash bands - all those triplets! - but maybe because of the soaring vocals, I often see them lumped in with power metal.  That's the closest analogue I can think of to what Adramelch are attempting.  Think early Iced Earth, like the first three records, when they still had proggy aspirations and the singers couldn't necessarily hit all the notes that they were straining for.  Here, the song "Decay (Saver Comes)" in particular is full of riffs that could grow up to become Iced Earth riffs.  Like IE after them, Adramelch are committed to building a picture through chords.  That's a good thing in Adramelch's case, because I think "Decay" most successfully fulfills their overall vision.  The various guitar and bass parts do all seem like they're part of the same song, with rising action repeatedly being beaten back downward on the scale until the band throws in some cannonfire-esque percussion to set up the final "arrival" of the song's "saver," embodied by the "your life belongs to you" second-chorus refrain. 

After the weirdness, it's striking to me how... normal the last three songs sound.   Conventional, even.  "Was Called Empire," "Eyes Of Alabaster," and "Dreams Of A Jester" seem like bread and butter metal, riff-verse-chorus stuff.  Much like the way they do everything else, Adramelch's take on a straightforward metal song is... close to being there, albeit weighed down by the fundamentals not being quite right.  Seriously, ambitious young band with more potential than polish, all the way down!  For instance, EOA's tasty riff and snappy drum fills are marred a bit by the fact that it's one of those songs where nobody thought to try doing another take except with the singer in the right key.   Anyway, I've already argued that the title track is the record's most exciting song, and that "Decay (Saver Comes)" is its most overall successful realization of the band's overall vision.  Well, Irae's actual best track for me is "Dreams Of A Jester."  I was reluctant to call it a favorite simply because of the relative lack of ambition compared to the earlier numbers... yet I can't deny the flat-out stomping metal riff, the catchy vocal melody that instantly lodges into the brain, the lyrics that convey a mix of melancholy and the potential for triumph, whilst making it about a jester to stick with the medieval shtick.***  There's something here with this band.

So, yeah.  One last reiteration of my thesis statement: Irae Melanox has all the hallmarks of being a rudimentary first record for a band that would go on to achieve greatness.  It is not, itself, a timeless classic.  They really should've gotten another one or two shots at becoming great, in 1990 or so.  And given that the next few things chronologically on my list I'm expecting to be more standard PM, it was nice to dive into something... not so standard.

Other scattered comments:

- The internet is no help when it comes to figuring out what the title of the record actually means, if anything.

- I haven't harped on the production, especially given that the band themselves reportedly hated the final product.  I can't disagree with them on that count.  On a mixing level, it is pretty self-evidently not good.  Robs the guitar parts in particular of their power.

- Didn't neatly fit into the rambling above, but I will once again mention as an isolated comment that if one instrumentalist is worth singling out for some special praise, it'd be bassist Franco Avalli.  I can't always tell if he's actually really good or if he needs to stop showing off and playing over the other guys' parts; I think it's probably some of each.  Youthful exuberance again.  What I can say is that in a genre where audible distinct bass parts are rare for me, I definitely notice Franco's ability to add color by throwing in an extra note or two to what could have been a basic rhythm part.

- The track "Fearful Visions" is the sort of okay overall that comes from an average of its good and bad parts.  Has there been a more unpleasant ear-curdling sound committed to record than Vittorio shrieking "liiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?"

- The pointless one-minute interlude "Lamento" is both subtitled and credited to "Anonymous XV Centh," so clearly it's not supposed to be a secret or anything that the piece is just "Scarborough Fair."  But let me reiterate that the melody of "Was Called Empire" is also "Scarborough Fair."  I can't be the only one who's noticed this.

- I'm trying to be as generous as I can with the mangled English phrasings and pronunciations, but that's another way in which the record's reach exceeds its grasp.  Youthful exuberance.  I'm guessing they figured metal in English would sell better, and I guess they're right since I, for one, probably wouldn't be listening if the words were in Italian.  Non-English vocals are my biggest blind spot as a music listener.

Favorite track:  "Dreams Of A Jester"

Runner up:  "Irae Melanox"

Least favorite track:  "Zephirus"

Rating:  2.5/5

Will I come back to Adramelch?

Probably not very much.  But just knowing that when half of the band finally reassembled to make more music under the Adramelch name, it was already the 21st century, and knowing that their later work is supposedly not all that much like Irae, well, it sort of mandates at least one curiosity spin of Broken History.

Things I learned about power metal: 

- "U.S. power metal" is way closer to riff-heavy trad metal offshoots than I'd realized

- The memory of feudalism is more deeply embedded in the Italian psyche than I'd realized.

- And... didn't need to learn but was reminded yet again that just because you can throw ten different things into a song doesn't mean you should.

 

Next:  Early impressions of Running Wild's Death Or Glory, whenever I get around to it!

 

*Don't ask me who'd be the judge of what's "interesting."  I'm writing about power metal, I'm allowed to engage in fantasy bullshit that's not properly thought through.

**AKA "The Jon Schaffer Experience."  All of this listening was pre-1/6/21, BTW, although I'd wager that the quality of the tunes would be more or less unchanged by the knowledge of certain eventual life choices of the band's sole permanent member.

***'80s rockers fucking loved their jesters.