TalismanStone is one of the recent female-fronted doom-oriented heavy bands in the Italian underground scene. Like Shinin’ Shade, TalismanStone is related to the Italian underground label Moonlight Records, because one of the band members is one of the guys behind the label. TalismanStone is a bit peculiar. At the moment the band is looking for the drummer.
However until recently and at the time of the album, the band consisted of a trio proudly “playing without guitars, made for 2/3 by women and for 2/3 by bassists”. Members are Andrea Giuliani, “da man”, on vocals, 5 strings bass guitar, sitar, synth and effects, with Erica Bassani on vocals and 4 strings bass, and Lucia Certolani playing drums and tabla. So the peculiarity is not really the presence of the ladies but the coupling of double bass and sitar (plus tabla) for composing quite heavy music. The band describe their sound as derived from “shoegaze, noise rock, post punk, post hardcore, industrial, dark, metal and indie influences”. I feel a bit more confident with a wide-angle tag like avantgarde psychedelic doom, for what tags may mean.
Anyway, TalismanStone’s style is surely curious because of the employment of sitar, common in ambient music but not so much in metal. In doom I remember UK doom-drone band Bong using sitar but of course the context is different. After a debut album called Sunya, the band released Lovecraftopolis during 2012. The album ranked high in the list of the best 2012 albums for the Italian heavy magazine Rockhard. Album Lovecraftopolis includes four long tracks (lasting between 8 and over 18 minutes) for a total length of about 46 minutes.
Surely what immediately strikes since the onset of the opening track By the Sun of the Light Keeper is the contrast between the raw, gritty sound of distorted bass guitars plus drumming and Erica’s sweet vocals. Slow plodding rhythm, sinister melodies inspired by traditional doom and grimly hypnotizing in their repetitiveness ... But the introduction of sitar and tabla in a rather traditional way acts like an escape towards airy horizons, the sunbeam chasing away the night ghosts. So when Andrea starts singing again by reciting lyrics in a low voice, his creepy half-spoken chant sounds like the minister of an exotic cult. Darker atmospheres created by dissonance and deformed sitar sounds, flute and percussions open Internal Dictatorship, the track where the band mix its exotic doom with noise.
Erica’s sweet singing is duly and disturbingly dissonant. So melody is unexpectedly brought about by Andrea who starts with soft singing and then turns to evil roars. Suite Power Is a Splendid Shroud starts via a long, quiet and very traditional-sounding ethnic intro before the dull roar of the distorted bass beats the time in a funereal march. The suite is sickly hypnotizing especially as soon as Andrea starts his low, menacing ritual-sounding chant. So Erica’s echoing vocals are like restless ghosts and then turn into light breeze from the tallest mountains whenever growling bass chords give way to sitar and tabla. The monumental, +18 minutes-long suite Lovecraftopolis (Part I) closes the album with a long mystic drony intro made of viscous, rough and wavy sounds similar to didgeridoo but probably produced by distortion and effects on bass. Such molasse-like sound is able to swallow the gentle sitar notes at the beginning and will further slowly swallow everything at the end of this charming although exceedingly long track. The core of the suite develops according to the interaction between Erica’s and Andrea’s vocals accompanied by a bass-driven mindwarping, alienating rhythm encompassing doom, psychedelia and ethno ambient music.
TalismanStone’s original recipe for contaminated occult, shamanic psych doom is well worth of note and tells about a band much inclined to experimentation. I personally enjoy the use of double bass in doom (like, for example, in War Iron and Horse Latitudes), as it is able to create earthquake-like vibrations and extremely dark ambience. Also, in TalismanStone the two bass guitars are played with different techniques leading to some intriguing solutions and effects. The mystic element introduced by TalismanStone mainly via ethnic sounds is charming and may recall Om, although not always the band succeeds in deeply digesting and truly blending the different components of their music. So sometimes the ethnic parts maybe still sound a bit too “ethnic” and just mechanically overlapped to the leading doomy theme. As to the vocals, I personally enjoyed them most when they were distorted or deformed instead of clean: they were not loosing their melodic charge but they were melting into the distorted tunes. So there is maybe a tiny bit of work yet to do for these endowed musicians but surely TalismanStone is well worth being kept under your radar for this and future releases.
Words: Marilena Moroni
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Official Website
MySpace
Moonlight Records | Facebook
Talisman Stone | Bandcamp
However until recently and at the time of the album, the band consisted of a trio proudly “playing without guitars, made for 2/3 by women and for 2/3 by bassists”. Members are Andrea Giuliani, “da man”, on vocals, 5 strings bass guitar, sitar, synth and effects, with Erica Bassani on vocals and 4 strings bass, and Lucia Certolani playing drums and tabla. So the peculiarity is not really the presence of the ladies but the coupling of double bass and sitar (plus tabla) for composing quite heavy music. The band describe their sound as derived from “shoegaze, noise rock, post punk, post hardcore, industrial, dark, metal and indie influences”. I feel a bit more confident with a wide-angle tag like avantgarde psychedelic doom, for what tags may mean.
Anyway, TalismanStone’s style is surely curious because of the employment of sitar, common in ambient music but not so much in metal. In doom I remember UK doom-drone band Bong using sitar but of course the context is different. After a debut album called Sunya, the band released Lovecraftopolis during 2012. The album ranked high in the list of the best 2012 albums for the Italian heavy magazine Rockhard. Album Lovecraftopolis includes four long tracks (lasting between 8 and over 18 minutes) for a total length of about 46 minutes.
Surely what immediately strikes since the onset of the opening track By the Sun of the Light Keeper is the contrast between the raw, gritty sound of distorted bass guitars plus drumming and Erica’s sweet vocals. Slow plodding rhythm, sinister melodies inspired by traditional doom and grimly hypnotizing in their repetitiveness ... But the introduction of sitar and tabla in a rather traditional way acts like an escape towards airy horizons, the sunbeam chasing away the night ghosts. So when Andrea starts singing again by reciting lyrics in a low voice, his creepy half-spoken chant sounds like the minister of an exotic cult. Darker atmospheres created by dissonance and deformed sitar sounds, flute and percussions open Internal Dictatorship, the track where the band mix its exotic doom with noise.
Erica’s sweet singing is duly and disturbingly dissonant. So melody is unexpectedly brought about by Andrea who starts with soft singing and then turns to evil roars. Suite Power Is a Splendid Shroud starts via a long, quiet and very traditional-sounding ethnic intro before the dull roar of the distorted bass beats the time in a funereal march. The suite is sickly hypnotizing especially as soon as Andrea starts his low, menacing ritual-sounding chant. So Erica’s echoing vocals are like restless ghosts and then turn into light breeze from the tallest mountains whenever growling bass chords give way to sitar and tabla. The monumental, +18 minutes-long suite Lovecraftopolis (Part I) closes the album with a long mystic drony intro made of viscous, rough and wavy sounds similar to didgeridoo but probably produced by distortion and effects on bass. Such molasse-like sound is able to swallow the gentle sitar notes at the beginning and will further slowly swallow everything at the end of this charming although exceedingly long track. The core of the suite develops according to the interaction between Erica’s and Andrea’s vocals accompanied by a bass-driven mindwarping, alienating rhythm encompassing doom, psychedelia and ethno ambient music.
TalismanStone’s original recipe for contaminated occult, shamanic psych doom is well worth of note and tells about a band much inclined to experimentation. I personally enjoy the use of double bass in doom (like, for example, in War Iron and Horse Latitudes), as it is able to create earthquake-like vibrations and extremely dark ambience. Also, in TalismanStone the two bass guitars are played with different techniques leading to some intriguing solutions and effects. The mystic element introduced by TalismanStone mainly via ethnic sounds is charming and may recall Om, although not always the band succeeds in deeply digesting and truly blending the different components of their music. So sometimes the ethnic parts maybe still sound a bit too “ethnic” and just mechanically overlapped to the leading doomy theme. As to the vocals, I personally enjoyed them most when they were distorted or deformed instead of clean: they were not loosing their melodic charge but they were melting into the distorted tunes. So there is maybe a tiny bit of work yet to do for these endowed musicians but surely TalismanStone is well worth being kept under your radar for this and future releases.
Words: Marilena Moroni
Official Website
MySpace
Moonlight Records | Facebook
Talisman Stone | Bandcamp