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REVIEW: ATRIUM ANIMAE - DIES IRAE
THE BIG TAKEOVER MUSIC MAGAZINE [AUGUST 2011]
2011 | AUGUST
| View on The Big Takeover Magazine
The Big Takeover is a bi-annual music magazine published out of New York City since 1980 by critic Jack Rabid, with the considerable help of dozens of staffers, interns, contributors, and volunteers.
The Big Takeover usually appears in June and December, with most recent issues coming in around 200 glossy pages. The review section, featuring Jack’s Top 40 for the issue, is regularly 60-80 pages long.
The magazine also features lengthy, in-depth interviews with favorite artists transcribed verbatim, sometimes stretching over two issues.
Atrium Animae: 'Dies Irae' - CD Review
by Michael Toland
Atrium Animae translates loosely from the Latin as “Hall of the Soul,” and that’s not a bad description of the Italian duo’s sound.
Dies Irae sounds like it was recorded in a cathedral, with Massimiliano Picconi‘s orchestral keyboards and Alessia Cicala‘s ghostly soprano swimming in a sea of reverb that gives the impression of sonic waves emanating from some astral plane.
There’s a prevailing aura of spiritual transcendence here, as if Atrium Animae is channeling messages from the divine – not happy thoughts, unfortunately.
The lyrics (all in Latin) travel the spiritual path between man and God, but the end result in “Angelum Abyssi” is not redemption, but the opening of the Seventh Seal and the beginning of the end of the world.
Most themes this dark come with harsh, dissonant accompaniment (cf. virtually the entire black metal catalog), so it’s strangely refreshing to hear the apocalypse transmitted with such haunting beauty.
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