Written by Kep
Fleshgod Apocalypse – Opera
> Symphonic death metal
> Italy
> Releasing August 23
> Nuclear Blast
It’s no secret at this point that Fleshgod Apocalypse is a band that means a lot to me. You might remember when I wrote a longwinded ranking of their discography (two years ago already!), and if you do then it won’t surprise you to learn that I had to edit the hell out of that article so that it wouldn’t be prohibitively long. You might also recall that their most recent album, 2019’s Veleno, is the low point in their storied career according to me. Nonetheless, the Opera announcement set my hopes high again, and I must say that having spent quite a bit of time with the record, I’ve come away with a rekindled love for Fleshgod’s music.
This is the on-record debut of the band’s revamped lineup, which now includes longtime collaborator soprano Veronica Bordacchini, guitarist Fabio Bartoletti, and drummer Eugene Ryabchenko, who all joined officially post-Veleno in 2020. Accordingly, founding member and lead songwriter Francesco Paoli, who drummed for the band for over a decade while Tommaso Riccardi handled vocals, is back to only guitar and vocals duty full-time after pulling triple duty on Veleno (it’s worth noting that he always performed on-recording guitar to some extent). It’s unclear to me whether or not the bass on Opera is Paoli or longtime bassist Paolo Rossi, who left the group earlier this year, but my money is on Rossi, whose trademark wailing cleans can still be heard in a few places on the album. Rounding out the lineup is pianist and orchestrator Francesco Ferrini, who’s been integral to the band’s commercial success since joining in 2010.
I avoided the initial singles in the interest of experiencing the full record top to bottom, but joke’s on me: after an emotive intro featuring Bordacchini’s warm tones set lugubriously over piano and strings, Opera then kicks off with all three singles back to back to back (though not in release order, to be fair). “I Can Never Die” is the quintessential song for 2024 Fleshgod Apocalypse, bombastic and indulgent, featuring a grandiose but exceptionally hooky main riff lfeaturing strings and choir, a soaring melodic chorus, plus incessant blastbeats and a killer solo with some dual harmonies. That theatrical chorus, which could accurately be described as “dangerously close to power metal,” is also the first time in their discography where Bordacchini and Rossi’s voices are heard in unison, and it’s a hell of an effect. “Pendulum” and “Bloodclock” round out the record’s opening section, both massive, larger-than-life spectacles, and by the time they’re done you’ll notice a few important things about Opera that become ever more true with each remaining track.
First, they’ve truly mastered the challenging production aspects of enormous symphonic death metal here. The earliest LPs were nonstop loud, Labyrinth was massively oversaturated and dense, while Veleno felt thin and weak somehow. King sounded great, but now Opera is undeniably the best the band has sounded. It’s huge and heavy but there’s nuance, the elements are crystal clear, and the orchestra is multifaceted and colorful without robbing the guitars of their power. Producer Jacob Hansen (Epica, Arch Enemy, Kamelot, etc.) righted the wrongs of Veleno (which he also mixed and mastered) here, and the band sounds fantastic.
Second, this is the most integrated Bordacchini’s voice has ever been, in that it truly feels like she’s a part of the group now and not simply the special “opera” part. She rings our triumphant and haunting chorus melodies (“I Can Never Die”, “Matricide 8.21”) and even screams her way through a memorable set of captivating semi-harsh verses (“Morphine Waltz”). She charms in sultry bridges (“Bloodclock”) and serves as an equal partner with Paoli in a number of harsh/clean exchanges that utterly rule (“At War With My Soul”, “Pendulum”). The entirety of de facto closer “Till Death Do Us Part” is built around her magnetic performance, a powerhouse sing that I’ll be going back to for a long time. She uses her whole range more than ever before (in “Per Aspera ad Astra” and “Till Death” she even sings in octaves with herself), notably spending much more time in her comfortable middle register, and gets out of “opera mode” quite a bit, leading to some really captivating low moments and some damn impressive sounds in her chest/head mix. Opera, in my opinion, truly does almost entirely right by her voice for the first time, and the effect on the album can’t be overstated.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, it feels like Paoli and company are the nearest they’ve been to having band and orchestra be equal partners; “At War With My Soul” is a great example, its opening all powerful guitars answered by towering choral pillars, its main riff built on chunky marching guitar decorated by barbaric slides in the strings and brass. In tracks like “Bloodclock” they’ll take a band-only passage and let the orchestra play it for a verse before shifting it back to the guitars. Ferrini’s sometimes flies up and down the keyboard in arpeggios while guitar doubles, like in “Morphine Waltz” or the “Pendulum” solo. Every time it seems like the orchestra might dominate the traditional death metal, the guitars rip off a nifty technical lick. The orchestra frequently operates in highlights and flourishes rather than taking up the entire picture.
A few final thoughts:
– Thanks to smart songwriting and brilliant pacing, Opera feels damn brisk. Doesn’t hurt that it’s only 43 minutes long (their shortest since Agony).
– The final song is, as their tradition dictates, a piano solo title track. It builds stirringly in harmony and size over its runtime, and might be Ferrini’s best closer.
– The ethereal angel choir effect heard briefly near the end of “Bloodclock” is amazing stuff.
– The one point where the album takes a slight misstep is “Per Aspera ad Astra”; it’s a fine track but not nearly as stirring as the rest.
– The final instrumentals of “Till Death Do Us Part” fade away til they’re small and lo-fi, as though from a radio that Bordacchini hums beside. It’s very cool, and brings Nightwish’s Imaginaerum to mind—not the only time I thought of that record during this one.
THE BOTTOM LINE
As far as I’m concerned, this is the best album of the Fleshgod Apocalypse full symphonic era that began with Agony. It’s intrinsically them, and does all of the things you’d expect, but it does them all better than ever. From production to songwriting to member cohesion to pacing it impresses, and though it’s not perfect, Opera is a stunner.