postvorta

Postvorta Airs Lengthy Grievances on "Vasa Praevia Dispassion"

postvorta

Death, and the loss it creates, is a displeasing but essential part of the human experience that has given rise to huge swaths of our musical expression as a species: everything dies, and those left behind need to come to grips with that until they too pass away. For some, that realization generates a creative impetus rather than an emotional hurdle, serving as morbid inspiration — memento mori and all that. Italian post-metal savants POSTVORTA, for one, chose to tackle the process of mourning that follows in the wake of death. Their upcoming album Porrima translates this ordeal into moving atmospheric sludge; check out the second track “Vasa Praevia Dispassion” below, a tumultuous narrative on anger.

According to guitarist Andrea Fioravanti, the 21-minute composition fixates on “the feeling of passive anger towards a complication.” I don’t know if the band had something specific in mind with that sentiment, but given that it’s the longest track on the album, there must be something they were really pissed off about.

Listen for yourself, though, and see if your own buried rage finds a catalyst in this lengthy post-metal journey with equal affinity for cinematic flair and harrowing grit. At times it feels as if the guitarists are simply trying to control chaos and rein in the cacophonous rumble — when they do, the silence they leave behind is almost resentful. Nearly constant throughout the song is the relentless coaxing of the rhythm section, cracking the whip and driving the listener through the peaks and valleys as a helpless passenger. As those grappling with anger inevitably must, “Vasa Praevia Dispassion” reaches a conclusion that seems impossible to accept, but that transpires regardless — the difficult transition of anger into bargaining, a stirring finale with ghostly tendrils of synthesizers creeping into the sludgy, passionate brew.

— Ted Nubel

Porrima releases on February 20th via Sludgelord Records and 22 Dicembre Records. Here’s a message from guitarist Andrea Fioravanti about “Vasa Praevia Dispassion”:

Porrima is a concept album divided into 5 tracks. Each track is one of the so called 5 phases of mourning: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. “Vasa Praevia Dispassion” deals with the feeling of passive anger towards a complication. With its 21 minute length, this piece is our longest song to date. It’s full of ebbs and flows, but the general mood is very dark: I believe that even the more melodic passages manage to inspire a sense of claustrophobia. This was our ultimate goal for this particular song: we wanted to submerge the listener in sorrowful visions. The last 7 minutes of the song display a dramatic crescendo which in my opinion is one of the most engaging themes we have ever written. The perfect ending for a song that at times greatly differs from the style of our previous efforts.

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