Opera IX – Strix - Maledictae in Aeternum (2012)

Eight years have passed since the band’s last release “Anphisbena”, and with “Strix - Maledictae in Aeternum” Opera XI intends of regaining their momentum and status in the Metal scene that they acquired with excellent releases before the year 2000. “Strix - Maledictae in Aeternum” delivers a heavy dosage of Black Metal tracks infused with Dark Metal elements but fails to fully capture the listener’s attention and quickly gets old.

After opening with a very typical atmospheric prologue, the band fully jumps into action with “1313”. In this track the atmosphere is very dense and chaotic (perfectly crafted) but the singing and the guitars feel a bit outdated. The crazy guitar leads are nice, but we’ve heard them many years ago in other Black Metal acts, the vocals are deranged and very powerful but they are also something that band’s have already done in the past (circa early 2000).

Pretty much the whole album is full of déjà vu moments that will make you constantly wonder if you have listened to this before. The atmospheric elements are pretty much the best thing of this release since they create a very dense and hellish mood, but they are constantly drowned by the sub-par guitars/drumming or just repeated until they get very dull. Tracks like “Vox in Rama” and “Mandragora” have enormous atmospheric potential but they are transformed into dull pieces by the rest of the ‘traditional’ instruments.

M. vocals are the second best thing in this release since they are very hellish and demonic sounding for the most part of the album, but on parts of certain tracks like the opening of “Earth and Fire”, they sound a bit weak. The guitar riffing in particular sounds a bit off when compared to the atmospheric elements and the distortion sounds a bit too plain for a release that has more mysticism behind it.

If you like pretty keyboards with a dense atmosphere and don’t really mind the music underneath sounding all the same, “Strix - Maledictae in Aeternum” is definitely a release that you should enjoy. For us that we actually liked Opera IX back in the day when Cadaveria use to sing, this release is very sub-par and has nothing special going for it. While not a completely bad release, we wished that Opera IX spent more time in making their sound as unique as it used to be in the past.

Release: January 24th, 2012

Country: Italy