DARK QUARTERER - THE ETRUSCAN PROPHECY (1988)

Nearly two and a half years ago, our old pal Aesop described Dark Quarterer's first album as such: "Really only Italians could pull off something as bizarre and grandiose as the proggy cult doom of Dark Quarterer. The band was formed way back in 1974 by eccentric bassist/vocalist Gianni Nepi, but didn't release their amazing self titled debut album until 1987. And while I wonder what these guys must've sounded like in '74, this album shows them sort of treading the same path of backward-thinking eccentricity as Cirith Ungol and Slough Feg... Truly epic cult metal filtered through the Italian psyche with all the melodrama and pageantry that we've come to expect from the country's metal bands."

Epic indeed, but the hazy ESL present on Dark Quarterer's very own Last.FM page ups the ante even further: "The original group was formed in 1974 in Piombino and was called “Omega erre”. Eight years of playing cover followed with no concerts or performances, but a continuous effort to capture the sounds and colours of the hard and progressive rock of those years...

It was an absolute imperative for the band to reproduce the songs faithfully - they played dozens of covers of Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden, Krokus, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, Gentle Giant, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Van Der Graaf Generator, Deep Purple, Ten Years After, Cream, Manowar, Michael Shenker, Colosseum... Their first composition was too light-weight harmonically and too commercial, boring even on first hearing. Fulberto Serena experimented with classical sonorities (Bach), arpeggios that were also veritable riffs, almost exclusively in the minor aiming to achieve the darkest colour possible...

So it took a lot of instinct but also many corrections and radical changes in order to achieve a final result that could not be improved upon. Only when everyone firmly believed in it was the result considered definitive. The introverted and moody personality of Fulberto contributed to disturbing pieces like the self-titled Dark Quarterer, The Entity, Gates of Hell, in which the protagonist actually wanted to live and die in the name of evil to dethrone Lucifer in the underworld!"

Are we clear on all that?
Good. Here's their second album.

Download HERE

DQ on Encyclopaedia Metallum