I can’t recall how The Wondering Daughters came to me. Probably it was a video recommending underground bands. Either way, Piah Mater managed to fill the void Opeth left in me when it decided to become a grandpacore band. Piah Mater was almost the missing link between Enslaved and Opeth. Even though you could feel it was copying those bigger bands, it was still great Prog Death/Black Metal, and that is hard to find. For years, I waited, and now I’m so excited to review Under The Shadow of The Foreign Sun. My expectations are high, and disappointment is always a possibility, but I’m diving in! Watch me!
Piah Mater has always had an emotional depth to its sound that is hard to describe. It’s like you’ve heard it all before, but not like this. Under continues this tradition, exploring complex subjects like alienation, societal change, and human ambition. It might sound like a completely insane analogy, but jumping into a Piah Mater album gives me the same emotional ups and downs as a Clarice Lispector novel (oh, you don’t know this Brazilian writer? Time to hit the books, my corpse-painted child). Under is familiar, but it experiments across Death, Black, and Folk Metal with ease. It’s elegant work with smooth transitions.
All these years have brought change, though. I do feel a stronger Be’lakor and In Mourning influence in the melodic ideas the band has taken here. It’s decided to go more for that raw emotional blow than just mind-bending technicality. One could say Piah Mater has decided to cement its own sound rather than just following others’ steps. Though the first time I listened to Under, I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed the new MeloDeath approach, after my second round, I understood the value of building these images. Also, this thing is produced with beauty! It actually has a decent dynamic range.
It was a hard task to find something to criticize in Under. I mean, it has awesome riffs, great stories, and tension and release everywhere (a freaking sax!). However, the tracks are indeed long, and I miss a bit of the aggressive moments from the previous release. On a more abstract note, some of the tracks tend to welcome the same feeling of “tribulation” (“As Islands Sink” and “Terra Dois” are good examples) that, though interesting, can beat you over the head again and again. Perhaps this isn’t a problem more than an artistic decision. Am I making sense? I’m not sure, but let’s put it this way: the album demands your attention in many ways, and that can wear you down if you’re not ready, since all the tracks are long as a proper history book.
I’m so happy to see that Piah Mater is alive and well. So, many nice comebacks this year. It almost makes me recover my faith in humanity. However, let’s focus on the fact that Piah Mater can be proud of this monolith of extreme Prog Metal elegance. It might get a bit long, but then that’s the rule of the game when making this type of music. Convincing us that indulgence is gold, and in this case, I accept it gladly. Having said all that, how on Earth is it possible that so few people know about these guys? It’s just criminal!
Label: Code666 Records
Release date: 5 July, 2024
Website: https://www.facebook.com/piahmater
Country: Brazil
Score: something like 3.5-4.0/5.0, honestly I almost forgot about this part already. It’s foreign to me…
Metal Eclipse Reviews 