Hello, Party People!

I was going to mention something in this article’s salutation about hoping you are having a happy Monday, but then I got thinking about how it seems like I use that phrase fairly frequently. As it turns out based on a quick search, fifteen times (not including today) in total, or an average of slightly more often than once per year.

So I guess it isn’t really THAT much, actually, but it does seem a bit irksome that zero of the fifteen times involved any reference to the Madchester band of the same name, and a bit disingenuous that zero of the fifteen times have actually involved anyone having a happy Monday.

But at the very least, we can hope for a Monday that is less awful than it might otherwise have been? And to that end, I present you with a pair of albums. Both by sludge metal bands from northern Italy (specifically, from Bergamo and Parma, approximately 160-something kilometers apart, or 100-ish miles), and both released by the Dusktone label (one exactly one month ago today, the other roughly fourteen months ago).

Enjoy!

 

Magnitudo – M A T E R I A L I S M (Dusktone, 20 March 2026)

 

Throne – Ossarium (Dusktone, 14 February 2025)

 

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First up, we have the newer of the two releases, by Bergamasque trio Magnitudo. Their second full-length album Materialism (or as they have stylized it, M A T E R I A L I S M) was inspired by Zingonia, a town near the band’s own home, “founded in the 1960s as an urban utopia” but now viewed as “a symbol of decay, alienation, and failed promises.” In the context of this recording, the band use the planned city as “a metaphor for contemporary collapse: consumerism, depersonalization, and the domination of matter over spirit.”

The echoey, solemn-sounding post-metal intro and the graven, chant-like singing of opening track “Auferstanden aus Ruinen” may not closely resemble the DDR national anthem of the same name, especially when the heavily-chugged, syncopated guitar patterns come in and the otherworldly, bellowing roar of a vocal takes over during the chorus, but (at least as far as I can tell) the English lyrics here do seem to be at least partially based on the German of the original hymn. (Compare opening lines “Rise up from the ruins / Toward our future” with “From the ruins risen newly / To the future turned, we stand.”) From there, it’s hard to decipher the rest, especially as the music grows louder and more distorted, but for an Italian band writing an album about an Italian failed utopia, taking inspiration from an anthem that focuses far more on wishing peace and prosperity and rebuilding than it does on “bombs bursting” like some countries.

Anyway, the album continues on for another thirty minutes or so in similar fashion, with massive riffs, gutteral growling, slow-to-moderately-slow tempos, and atmospheres ranging from the dark and desolate to the oppressively claustrophobic. The band’s press release concludes by saying the musical elements here “reflect the weight of an industrial environment devoid of a future,” a cheerful thought successfully conveyed through the material found herein.

 

 

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Next up, we will be turning back the clock a little over a year to the release of Parmesan quintet Throne‘s third album — Ossarium, whose name is an alternate form of ‘Ossuary’ or a repository for human bones, particularly (most famously) those in the catacombs of Paris, or various other locations.

The press release for this album cites the supposedly common saying “Hell ain’t a bad place to be” — a sentiment which I’m personally not familiar with anyone expressing, but if they do, apparently it’s “because Throne are not running the place, because if they were, hell would be really… hellish.”

Based on the overall tone of the Ossuarium record, this latter statement seems thoroughly believable. Consisting of wall-to-wall nonstop blackened sludge — gruffly roared vocals, medium or lower tempos, monolithic rhythms and riffs, but the notes of those riffs are frequently subdivided into much smaller and faster units to give the impression of black-metal-style tremolo picking.

The primary source of the hellishness, though, the basis for the band’s pitch-black vibe, has got to be the cavernous sense of atmosphere where every soundwave seems like it reaches your ears only after repeatedly bouncing between the desolate stone walls of an underground tomb filled with sarcophagi and dusty old remains, simultaneously giving the sensation of limitless fourth-dimensional range as well as extremely, terrifyingly limited space within the other three dimensions.

 

 

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Materialism is available here (digital-US) or here (digital/cd-EU), while Ossarium may be found here (digital-US) or here (digital/cd/vinyl-EU).

 

 

Magnitudo: Bandcamp
 
Throne: Bandcamp | Soundcloud
 
Dusktone: website | Bandcamp | YouTube