Falling Giants – Whirlwind Hymns

From the Apennine peninsula a doom rock Italian quartet are ready to bust out on the metal scene. Their debut full length album is out worldwide September 30. The album art resembles tattoo flash art. The thematic song set influenced their artwork. Wind and air elements coalesce creating the foundation of their songwriting. An old world Greek story is the source of the album art imagery.

The lead track, “Northwest Passage + Where the Deserts” collide to form a mammoth track. Three instrumental minutes kick off the song, atmospheric doom, and prog. Black Sabbath meets Rush. The stripped down raw vocals rise, magma flows up from hades. The final few minutes of the song twists and contorts through the bridge, the vocals crystallize, finishing hardened, heated lava rock, hints of hardcore closes out the opening salvo.

Back to back 10-minute tracks to kick off the album. Punishing doom sets the tone for a seven song assault. The third track “Hopediver” feels right out of the deep pine forested Pacific Northwest, a woodland bacchanal. Channeling the icons of grunge. This song would fit on a Tad or Green River album. The song finishes with a hardcore tinged vocal assault. Melvins meets Quicksand.

The video for “Hopediver” is superior to the song. A black and white film mimicking century old film techniques, contrasting light and dark. There are moments of comedy in the dark fantasy. Pious souls dance with devils. The video is fine art and conveyor of metal music. “The Wind Shifts” is an acid head day at a bull fight. The slow, doom/stoner song melts and distorts. A spaghetti western nightmare. “To Paint the Woes” fuses euro industrial and east coast hardcore and mashes it in your ear holes. A heavy punk tinged fuzz machine. This song is a all things heavy metal, a loud rock panoply. The finale, “The Trail of Dust Men” clocks in at 11 minutes. The band describes their last and latest penned track as a Herculean epic. A battle of gods. An epic unfolds. The song plods along, doom and chaos. The final two and a half minutes of the song erupt. Heavy metal excellence.

Among the metal maelstrom there are some punk fueled moments too. Overall, the quartet are covering too much sonic territory. Their influences range from doom, stoner, grunge, hardcore and death metal. Incorporating all one’s influences muddles what could be a strong rock set.

The foursome taps a wide array of hard rock influences. They cite High on Fire, Fu Manchu, Mudhoney, Savatage and many more. A metalhead’s dream album collection of hard rock giants. Putting all their influences through a meat grinder doesn’t quite fuse into a modern metal must have album. The music has some electric moments. More from the Italian rockers is welcomed. Where their influences take them creatively is intriguing. The band is one to watch.

The Adriatic seacoast is home to the foursome, Rust (guitar/vocals), Frank (bass/vocals), Apsychos (guitar) and Briareo (drums) describe their sound, “filthy stoner/sludge. Accurate. Falling Giants are in your face, on social media. Find more at https://www.facebook.com/falling.giants.filth/