Symphonic Holocaust

As tribute albums became popular in the rock & roll world during the 1990s, it was inevitable that they would soon push into obscure and truly cultish territory. A good example of a tribute album that goes beyond the fringe for its inspiration is Symphonic Holocaust. This intriguing oddity finds an ad hoc tribute band made up of European heavy metal musicians from the groups Anekdoten and Landberk covering a series of instrumentals taken from the soundtracks of obscure, mostly European exploitation movies. Morte Macabre is also unusual in that its overall sound is focused around the mellotron, a kind of primitive synthesizer that was a favorite with progressive rock musicians during the 1960s and 1970s. The result is an unusual but highly listenable amalgam of heavy metal bombast, prog rock grandeur, and spooky soundtrack-derived atmospherics. As one might expect, a good part of Symphonic Holocaust has a heavy, ominous edge to it: "Apoteosi Del Misterio" unleashes a series of soaring yet ghostly mellotron lines over a rumbling backdrop of thudding drums and fuzzed-out bass riffs, while "Sequenza Ritmica E Tema" pits throbbing bass and wailing electric guitar against a hypnotic, endlessly repeated mellotron motif. However, the big surprise is that just as much of the album is devoted to quietly ominous mood pieces: "Quiet Drops" weaves a delicate tapestry of acoustic and electronic guitars before fading in a spooky mellotron backing, while "Lullaby" highlights a ghostly, wordless female vocal against some light keyboard textures. The band also throws in a powerful original with the title track: Clearly written in the spirit of the compositions they cover, it weaves together a series of hypnotic themes into an 18-minute epic that goes through countless shifts in tempo and orchestration without ever drifting into aimless jamming. Ultimately, listeners' interest in Symphonic Holocaust will depend on their predilection for heavy, gothic instrumental music, but this well-crafted album is well worth a spin for fans of horror soundtracks and for adventurous prog rock and metal fans. ~ Donald A. Guarisco, Rovi