Intaglio - Intaglio (Crystal Clear with Black Marbled) (12'' LP) Cardboard Sleeve

Review
Homo-Faber.net
14.04.2021

A reimagined version of the self-titled debut “Intaglio” album originally released in 2005. The new version contains parts and sounds that were not included in the original version of the album, which is now in their place as originally intended. Every second of all the original source tracks underwent restoration and processing using top-class digital and analog equipment. Moreover, for the new version of the album, all drum parts were live recorded, without the use of triggering and sampling technologies, which is very rare nowadays. The album was restored and remixed by Evgeny Semenov (When Nothing Remains, Woe Unto Me, Sorrowful Land) at Slow Burn Studio, mastering was performed by Mika Jussila (Shape Of Despair, Isole, Unholy, Moonspell) at Finnvox Studios.

This work requires a certain state to be listened to. It would be rash to listen to it in a hurry on the go. Only 4 songs a little over 40 minutes. And there are so many weaves to grab onto. Album is opened with light post-rock instrumental “The Beginning”. Then it’s replaced by a depressing second track. “Dark Cherry Day” collapses like a stone block that fell into the abyss from the inevitability of the past centuries lived.

They calmly follow their narrative path and allow the album to unfold from first to last note. This is a single whole organism, as is often the case in the declared genre. So when it’s time for the next composition, I’m already losing track of time and don’t pay attention to changes . Melodic sections appear, somewhere the melancholy intensifies due to depressive minimalistic acoustic passages. But it’s still the same one common story, some depressing feeling of blues, melancholy and apathy. Another one instrumental piece of this funeral pie is “Interlude” which becomes a minimalistic transitional link for the next two weighty compositions.

The lyrics of the songs are performed in Russian, one of my native languages, but I could not make out almost nothing of what was being sung. This is connected not so much with the use of extreme techniques, but primarily with a strange mastering. I don’t like how deeply the vocals are sunk in this work, it is almost completely covered by the instrumental layer. But this is definitely a matter of taste and probably technical aspects.

Sometimes compositions can cause disturbing sensations, but on top of that, they reflect, after the fact, deep grief without any hope of any positive outcome. “Solitude” is not just about some kind of loss, it is rather about the all-consuming existential feeling that we come into this world alone and we leave the same way. Nobody belongs to anyone in this mortal world. The musical mood clearly conveys this idea, at least so it seems to me.

Autumn for us is the sunset of life, preparation for withering, for hibernation and transition to the awakening standby mode. The samsara wheel makes another round. But we are in a sense of either peace or an oppressive feeling that everything around is dying. “Wind Of Autumn” reminds us again that nothing lasts forever under the sun. Musically, this track is perhaps the most juicy and emotional, saturated with life (no matter how strange it sounds in songs about death). Autumn, by the way, is one of the favorite topics in the doom in general, and in the Russian doom in particular. It is difficult to find a better time of the year that would emotionally resonate with us on the same wavelength when it comes to quiet sadness.

So again, I bow my knee to the representatives of the worthy Russian doom scene. An excellent musical work, which is not just an album in the usual musical sense, but also an art performance. I would like to know a little more about the band in the future, see it on social networks sometimes, maybe get a music video or visualization for songs. Such material should have some kind of continuation, definitely.

Author: Olga Kann

Review
DarkUndergroundMusicZine
8/10
01.01.2021

Intaglio are a duo from Russia that plays a very atmospheric form of funeral doom/death metal and this is a review of their 2005 self titled album which was re-issued in 2020 as a joint effort between Solitude and Weird Truth Productions.

Dark soundscapes start off the album along with some clean playing a few seconds later while the solos and leads are also done in a very melodic style. The slower riffs also bring in the heaviness of funeral doom metal while the vocals are mostly death metal growls and a great portion of the tracks are also very long and epic in length.

At times the music also gets very atmospheric sounding while the riffs also bring in a decent amount of depressive sounding melodies. Grim screams can also be heard in certain sections of the recording along with a couple of the songs also being interludes and all of the music also sticks to a slower direction as well as the closing track also adding in a brief use of whispered vocals.

Intalgio plays a style of funeral doom/death metal that is very slow, dark, atmospheric and heavy sounding. The production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover nature, darkness and depression themes.

In my opinion Intalgio are a very great sounding atmospheric funeral doom/death metal solo project and if you are a fan of this musical genre, you should check out this re-issue. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Dark Cherry Day" and "Wind of Autumn".

Author: OccultBlackMetal

Review
The Killchain
11.12.2020

The rerelease of 2005’s self titled album from Russian funeral doom band Intaglio brings what may be a lost classic back to life. Solitude Productions and Weird Truth Productions have collaborated to remaster this, restoring parts missed from the original release and bring one of Russia’s most influential records back to life. It is out now.

I’ve never heard the original version of this album, full disclosure, so the bits and pieces that have changed will not be very obvious to me. The cold tones of ‘The Beginning’ set us up nicely for the type of soul smothering heaviness to come. It is bleak, isolated and conveys a sense of doom incarnate using a simple clean melody. This lonely coldness just about prepares you for the monolithic chasm torn open by the riffs of ‘Dark Cherry Day’, a granite beast of funeral doom majesty. Beastial roars echo from the deep, while cavernous riffs cascade around you. Hell, even the ‘Interlude’ feels like an epic of the genre and it is only four minutes. It is sandwiched between the aforementioned ‘Dark Cherry Day’ and the titanic ‘Solitude’, a song that really struggles to contain the vast misery held within.

Closing with the delicate swelling crush of ‘Wind of Autumn’, ‘Intaglio’ may have felt lost for 15 years, but its sound remains timeless. In a year like 2020, the encapsulation of the isolation and empty bleakness of life is something some of us look for in order to get through this. Intaglio manages to hold this feeling tightly, and having followed a bit of the Russian doom scene over the years I can see the tendrils of this mighty record slithering throughout. Beautiful.

Author: Sandre the Giant

Review
The Pit Of The Damned
08.11.2020

A distanza di 15 anni dalla data del rilascio ufficiale del debut album dei russi Intaglio, la Solitude Productions ha pensato bene di tornare a riproporre quel lavoro completamente remixato, con un nuovo artwork, un interludio in più e i titoli delle canzoni tradotte in inglese (tanta roba insomma). Era il 15 ottobre 2005 allora, è il 15 ottobre 2020 oggi, quando la release ha spento le sue prime 15 candeline. Per chi non li conoscesse e per chi non avesse mai avuto a che fare con la label russa, beh sappiate che fra le mani abbiamo un discreto lavoro di funeral doom, che parte dalle abissali sonorità di "Dark Cherry Day" che per 12.57 minuti (13 secondi in meno della traccia originale), ci spingono nel profondo con le catacombali atmosfere create dal combo originario di Orël. Gli ingredienti inclusi in questo lavoro sono inevitabilmente i soliti, con le classiche ritmiche a rallentatore, le voci dall'oltretomba e qualche lungo frangente acustico che stempera una pesantezza a tratti sfiancante per quanto desolante essa sia. Il brano non disprezza nemmeno una certa vena melodica, chiaro che per chi non mastica il genere, non è che sia cosi facile avvicinarsi ad una proposta cosi conservatrice. "Interlude" lega con la sua placida malinconia strumentale il precente pezzo con "Solitude", per un'altra estenuante song di nostalgica battaglia interiore. Oltre dodici minuti di sonorità opprimenti che seguono sulla falsariga, quanto tracciato dal precedente brano, insomma la colonna sonora ideale per chi è rimasto recluso in casa in uno dei tanti lockdown sparsi nel mondo e stia vagamente pensando a farla finita. Ecco, "Solitude" credo che potrebbe dare la giusta spinta a tutti coloro che si trovano in tale situazione di equilibrio precario, quindi vi prego, maneggiate con cura e se non siete proprio dell'umore giusto, beh forse è meglio posticipare l'ascolto degli Intaglio a tempi migliori. Soprattutto perchè a rapporto mancano ancora gli angoscianti dieci minuti di "Wind of Autumn" (nella sua versione originale peraltro ne durava più di 17): la song parte piano con lievi tocchi acustici che lasciano ben presto il posto ad un riffing marcato, pesante, plumbeo quanto basta per darci il colpo di grazia definitivo e farci sprofondare nella disperata mediocrità della nostra vita. Amen.

68/100
Francesco Scarci

Review
No Clean Singin
13.10.2020

On the 15th of October, 2005, Solitude Productions released the self-titled debut album of the Russian band Intaglio (also known as Инталия). The album made a deep impact, not only because Intaglio were one of the earlier pioneers of funeral doom in their homeland but also because the music created such a powerful and memorable amalgam of crushing weight, desolate atmosphere, and profound melody.

It is thus entirely fitting that on October 15 of this year, on the album’s 15th anniversary, Solitude Productions and Weird Truth Productions will be releasing a very special “reimagined” edition of the album. As they explain: “All the original source audio tracks have undergone restoration and processing using top of the line digital and analog gear. In place of the original version’s programming, all drum parts have been live recorded without the use of any triggering or sampling technology. The album was restored and remixed by Evgeny Semyonov (When Nothing Remains, Woe Unto Me, Sorrowful Land) at Slow Burn Studio, and mastering was performed by Mika Jussila (Shape Of Despair, Isole, Unholy, Moonspell) at Finnvox Studios.”

The results of this careful work are stunning, and an experience that no fan of funeral doom should miss. We are very happy to give you the chance to experience it today through the premiere of a full stream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNE6_jXzE2s

Of the five tracks on the album, two are shorter — “The Beginning”, which sets the stage at the outset, and “Interlude”. In between those two tracks comes the 13-minute “Dark Cherry Day” and following “Interlude” are two more tracks of significant length, “Solitude” and the closer, “Wind of Autumn”.

The striking clarity of the music’s ethereal aspects is announced immediately through “The Beginning”, a soulful and dreamlike piece that seems like a wistful reverie. And thus the contrast presented by the opening of “Dark Cherry Day” is staggering in its impact. The methodical drum blows sound like the detonation of bunker-busting bombs, while the sonic weight of the jagged-edge chords is immense. The slow, moaning melody channels a mixture of crushing grief and wrenching pain, a combination reflected in the range of harsh vocals. Yet the ethereal aspects of Intaglio’s sound shine through in the ring of crystalline guitars, whose effect is mesmerizing, though shadowed by a distant approaching storm.

There is a sense of struggle within the song, a beautiful, plaintive appeal in the chiming notes juxtaposed against the cold, oppressive, distorted clang of the riffs and the clobbering punishment of the drum and bass strikes. That juxtaposition is what makes the song so hauntingly seductive and yet so harrowing.

While one might expect the instrumental “Interlude” track to return to the timbre and sheen of “The Beginning”, it is instead another amalgam, a hybrid of gleaming lights and immense mountain crags drenched in shadow. It succeeds in deepening the tragic spell that the album has been casting, offering glimpses of hope but without forgetting the likelihood of hopelessness.

In the two long tracks that close the album, “Solitude” and “Wind of Autumn”, Intaglio continue working with the ingredients they so carefully and assuredly deployed in the preceding tracks, proceeding ahead in the steady and staggering march of great leviathans to their burial grounds. Celestial notes create visions of splendor just beyond reach, and shivering tones become the sounds of fear and weeping. The impact of the low-end chords and pavement-splitting drums remains devastating. And the reverberating melodies remain simple, but tremendously evocative and no less spellbinding.

This is funeral doom of a very high order, meticulously crafted and expertly executed, and successfully standing the test of 15 years’ time. It wears its heart on its sleeve, encapsulating a range of very human emotions confronting the frailty of life with haunting power, and also raising looming obsidian monuments of despair and death, too towering to climb and too massive to circumvent.

Author: Islander