Album Review: Ade - Supplicium
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
Ah, the Italians. The world has so much to thank this nation of crazed spaghetti chompers for, from their unparalleled contributions to cuisine, art, and 1970s zombie films. Their architecture is iconic, their history rich with illimitable rabbit holes to tumble down, their gifts to the sciences immaculate. Yet today, we gather to honour precisely none of the aforementioned accomplishments, for today we convene to celebrate one aspect of the Italian people that goes tragically overlooked by the mainstream; and that’s their approach to death metal.
Ade are, first and foremost, a death metal band. And a good one as it happens, even if it is immediately clear which wells they draw their influences from. Two immediately spring to mind with the agility of a gazelle on speed, that being the twin titans of Nile and Cryptopsy. And those are both superlative words, in diabolic union as a rock solid core for Ade's sound in the shifting powerchord passages into flickering bursts of tremolo on the high strings like spires igniting, mingling salaciously with suspended pentatonic euphonies spreading wide as the aquila's wingspan, all civilisation within it's feather-tips. The prime of it - “Quartered by Chariots” – are coursing therianthropes, all threat growl and crescent claws. Whip-fast, yet beguiling with it, with strong melodic components in amidst the maelstrom, powerful enough to grind Gaul flat ‘neath the centurion’s heel. The speed of it can be daunting; akin to their compatriots in Putridity, Hour of Penance or Fleshgod Apocalypse, herein reside heroic marathons of percussive aggression with which Ade sow ruin, the air thick with the stench of Carthage’s salted earth. Yet hold; Ade also work with archaic folk instruments both to set their efforts apart from their contemporaries and as a thematic link with their subject matter – that being the Roman empire. And while I think that Ade are very good as a death metal band, their dabbling with broader instrumentation...well, that’s not exactly the most expertly seasoned bowl of meatballs all told.
The other “non-standard metal” instruments – if you’ll pardon such a leaden, inexact manner of phrasing it – can elevate the music, but as often as not come across more as a gimmick, presented in an effort to distinguish the band from their peers without doing anything noteworthy or interesting on it’s own terms. Which isn’t to suggest that I think Ade would be best served by amputating those elements – if anything the opposite, I’d like them to be employed but just in a manner that highlights their strengths as opposed to just limply following guitar lines as though nothing better could be thought of. They’re a little pedestrian as-is, and counterproductive in that they demonstrate how much better comparable bands like – the aforementioned Nile - are at knitting these aspects into their material. The folk elements of “Burnt Before Gods” seem almost perfunctory for example, and if they don’t precisely subtract from the music, they don’t add to it either. It’s irritating, not least because when their attempts are rendered with a bit more forethought – as on monstrous closing track “Taedium Vivare” – the effect is destructive, amplifying the lethality of the metal as opposed to miring it.
Beyond that though I have little more to mope about; more accurately, I’ve nits to pick but they become wholly swamped by countervailing virtues. If I think that “Ave Dis Pater” lingers on a tad longer than it should courtesy of a redundant chorus refrain at the end, it’s absolved by ridiculously good shit like the lithe, wiry riff-fest of “Patibula”, with it’s trebuchet main riff and Decapitated-esque open string grooves. If I think that the production could do with more bass, the punch to the drums and the crunch on the guitars salves my misgivings, and quibbles with the folksier side of things aside the songs here are largely excellently written. I would like more solos, though I enjoy the songs immensely as they are. Supplicum, then, is a story of a substantially brilliant assemblage of tunes, scuffed by occasional setbacks. There’s kinks to iron out to be sure; but the more time I spend with it the more I find myself realising that the Romans haven’t quite finished doing things for us, so if you ache as I ache for more fevered Italian blasturbation, by all means indulge in Ade’s charms.
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