Funeral Oration – Antropomorte

Italian long-standing black metal pioneers Funeral Oration are back with their third album. Originally formed in 1989 in Taranto, Apulia, the band released their debut album Sursum Luna in 1996 on Avantgarde Music before dissolving the following year. Twenty years later, in 2017, guitarist and keyboardist Luca La Cara and singer and lyricist The Old Nick brought Funeral Oration back from the dead to release their sophomore album Eliphas Love in 2019, again via Avantgarde Music.

Five years have passed already, and the time has come for a new chapter. Antropomorte sees La Cara and The Old Nick banding with bassist Iblis (Handful Of Hate) and drummer David Folchitto (Stormlord and many others) to craft seven hymns of old-style, essential black metal from the ‘90s. As Funeral Oration describes it, Antropomorte is “a desperate litany of decadence and mystical delirium. Marcia funebre per il genere umano.”

Once again we deal with poetry, occultism and antichristian sentiment thanks to lyrics directly inspired when not directly translated from poets and artists from different ages. “Amor Obsessio” is a direct translation made by The Old Nick from ”La morte embaumée” by M. Rollinat (1883), “Cloaca Cattolica” (“Catholic Sewer”) is inspired by true events occurred in Varazze in 1907, “Il Serpente Della Genesi” (“Serpent from the Genesis”) is another translation from “Lilith” by R. de Gourmont (1892) and so is “Notturno Sepolcrale”, translated from “Ténèbres” by A. Samain (1895). “Stregheria”, on the other hand, is a direct quotation of Salvator Rosa’s “La strega”, from 1646.

With Fritz Aigner’s, Matthäus 8 49 (1970) as cover, Antropomorte is an album dense with ideology, poetry and culture, the undeniable proof that black metal can still offer food for thought. Funeral Oration’s third record will be released on March 22nd via Avantgarde Music on CD, vinyl and digital.