Bedsore

Cercati dentro la radice nera, ascendi!
E dormi ancora!
Cercati dentro
Cerca ora!
E ascendi!
E dormi ancora!

The 1970s prog-rock is the starting point for “Dreaming The Strife For Love,” the second album by the Roman band Bedsore. This album sees them moving far from extreme metal, here contaminated and often dissolved into structures more tied to the intricate progressions of extended tracks in the progressive tradition. Their trajectory is similar to that of prog-metal giants like Dream Theater, but with a more gothic and furious twist, reminiscent of the vampiric decadence of Moonspell. It also echoes the more recent prog explorations between rock and metal, such as those by Haken and Sweven, or, sticking to bands with a more extreme background, Blood Incantation or Opeth.
The protagonist, along with the keyboard-dominated arrangements by Stefano Allegreti, is Jacopo Gianmaria Pepe’s singing in Italian (!), which has reached a theatrical, emphatic, and lyrical style, highlighting above all the most tragic aspects of the love sentiment explored throughout the album. His scream, expressive and always careful about the comprehensibility of the Italian lyrics, best bridges the metal and rock aspects, violence and lyricism.

The organ’s role in the opening “Minerva’s Obelisque” stands out—a nearly liturgical reference echoing Goblin—and the choice to begin with a six-minute instrumental fantasy. It’s a way to mark the change before “Scars Of Light,” amidst synth trails, finds a more metal riff and the voice conveys a love anguish that is a sweet torment of the soul. This, however, is not a return to the song format, as the track evolves through instrumental explorations, often centered on the organ, with schizophrenic alternations between dreamy and mephistophelian moments. It sets the stage for “A Colossus, An Elephant, A Winged Horse; The Dragon Rendezvous,” a 12-minute piece opened by lugubrious drones, the perfect soundtrack for the entrance to hell. When a colossal threnody takes shape, led by mournful strings and then made more lyrical by the guitar, one might even recall certain rituals by Nile, although the development leads to a furious epic-toned thrash-death-metal interspersed with further organ explorations and a pastoral vignette. The finale even adds a saxophone before the supersonic closing outburst.

The most extreme track is “Realm Of Eleuterillide,” despite the sweet dreamy fusion interlude and the arpeggiated ending, as it’s the most tormented and suffocating, with an impressive vocal performance in terms of intensity.
The taste for the liturgical and funereal dominates the brief “Fanfare For A Heartfelt Love” before the ten minutes of “Fountain Of Venus”: opened like a tense war dance with a powerful epic vein, it proceeds unpredictably through a speed-metal outburst, a desolate fusion interlude, asymmetric magmatic funk, a section as prog-rock as it gets, and finally a last climax that doesn’t fully dissipate the tension.

Inspired by the mysterious medieval book Hypnerotomachia Poliphili attributed to the Venetian Francesco Colonna, "Dreaming The Strife For Love" is Bedsore’s consecration as a top-tier band in Italian prog-metal, with strong prog-rock influences.


(This article’s English version was produced with AI-assisted translation)

15/01/2025