FATHER MURPHY

Father Murphy (the Italian duo comprised by Rev. Murphy and Chiara Lee who is troubling the underground since the early Noughties with a series of dark, disturbing recordings) this time team up with producer Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo (Larsen) for a 10" EP aptly titled "Lamentations" to be released by the avant-garde label Backwards November 2015. "Lamentations" completes Father Murphy's 2015 Trilogy of The Cross, started with Calvary ( a 10' minutes long introductory piece released by Blue Tapes in January) and followed by Croce (Father Murphy's 5th album and first release for the San Francisco based label The Flenser, out in March). Recorded in Turin with the help of sound engineer Paul Beauchamp, "Lamentations" finds Father Murphy at a crossroad of sort: instigated by Modonese Palumbo, Chiara and the Reverend went for a slight alteration of their signature sound, while merrily focusing on their obsessive topics (death, God, pain, forgiveness - and probably also a tongue kept firmly in their cheeks). Inspired by a not exactly orthodox reading of the Book of Jeremiah and by the tradition of the Holy Week Lamentations, the band went this time for two long compositions that at the same feel like classic Father Murphy and a substantial enrichment of their usually spare sonic palette. The death-tone of the Reverend's guitar here replaced by a trumpet with the same death-tone, Chiara Lee's half-childish half-demonic vocals, the buzzing drones that wrap the duo's sound in an uncomfortable, suffocating aura are all still there but this time there is also something different. There is in fact a new, almost "hidden reverse Britain" vibe (maybe a by-product of Modonese Palumbo's well-documented love for bands like Nurse With Wound and Coil) and also an aftertaste of that kind of weird, twisted, turned inside-out/upside-down psychedelic black metal played by groups like Urfaust and Striborg. All in all, the final result is another distinct Father Murphy release, another brick in the enigmatic wall of sound they are building year after year. (label info)