I follow Italians Deathless Legacy for something like four years. Since 2016 they released an album in a year, slowly going from a fun “circus of the freaks” to a tragedy and then to some serious occultism. Such fertility allows tracing the growth and development of Deathless Legacy as musicians and as show makers as well. And in 2020 the band releases no less than a metal opera named Saturnalia.
Saturnalia tells the story about Lucius, a slave from ancient Rome. He is fleeing from the revenge of his master. During this fleeing Lucius reborn and spirituality transforms with some help from goddess Laverna – this is about various mystical cults of ancient Rome, such as cult of fire in particular.
The metal opera itself is made in quite original way: Deathless Legacy recorded one big track that lasts 24 minutes. All necessary parts are distinctly emphasized here: an intro, a twist, main plot and a final, of course. I can’t really say that everything is seamless here: some parts are joined in a quite rough way and could easily become the separate songs. With this, most elements here joined quite seamlessly.
Musically this album is a mix of monumental Symphonic Metal similar to Therion, Melodic Metal and even some Progressive. Sometimes one of these elements highlighted purposely, sometimes it’s a mix of everything mentioned above. But even in this case it mixed well and it doesn’t sounds like a cacophony.
In contrast to other metal operas, there is only on vocalist, Steva. I don’t know why did it happened, maybe the band wanted to make this album only by themselves or for some other reasons. Nevertheless, Steva’s emotions compensate the absence of other vocalists.
All in all, Saturnalia is definitely worth attention. It’s an interesting, original and bold project, especially in our tough times when idea shrinks to a tweet, picture to emoji and music to a sample.
Saturnalia will be released on March, 13 via Scarlet Records.
P.S. The band will also release a DVD with medium-length black and white film, inspired by 1920s German cinematography. This film was directed by Deathless Legacy drummer Frater Orion (Andrea Falaschi).
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