The mastermind behind Pale Cremation, Matt Lasserre, is never one to simply hit repeat and put out the same monotonous sounding album. I would say that Matt is very driven on delivering music that features a variety of his musical influences. Also, his exploration into these thought provoking science fiction themes has really become a captivating quality on his most recent releases.
“Alta Stranezza,” might be one of his most bizarre and creative creations to date with its variety of musical styles blended together to paint an entropically futuristic vision. You could say that this album is like a Federico Fellini movie, but with a surreal science fiction twist that explores a dystopian world where humanity seems to be completely spiraling into insanity. Overall, Matt delivers a plethora of influences ranging from hard hitting doom riffs, to some new wave and synth driven sections, to even some 90’s industrial arrangements. I thought on Pale Cremation’s album, “Communion,” that Matt was really infusing more post-punk and new wave elements into the music, however, on “Alta Stranezza” he really takes it to a new level.
There are five songs on the album with the opening song being close to twenty minutes long, which feels like a tip of the cap to his prog rock influences such as Rush and King Crimson. The first sounds you hear on the song are air raid sirens blaring to sound out a warning of what is to come. Right after the air raid sirens cease, Matt unleashes a crushing prog rock jam to take listeners on a rollercoaster of galactic musical chaos. Throughout the track I thought Matt added some really solid guitar leads and melodies to complement the heavy yet spacey sounding arrangements. Handling the drumming on the album is Anders V. Wienerholden who has worked with Matt before on past Pale Cremation releases. I think the production and recording of the drums is very well done and allows Matt to lay down some killer guitar work amongst the bombastic rhythms. Also, during the track Matt deviates from the slamming hard rock parts to offer listeners some out of this world synth compositions that make you feel like you are drifting into majestic cosmic realms deep in space.
The second song on the album, “Termination Of Bio-Spheric Extremity,” contains a really HEAVY bass riff that I felt was a high point during the track, and reaffirms why Matt is known as the Bass Wizard. The third track, “Beyond the Dark Side of Science,” starts out with this very profound synth arrangement that almost sounds like it could be used at the beginning of a John Carpenter film with Kurt Russell walking down the street looking ready to kick some ass. During the song I liked when Matt started using a distorted vocal effect to deliver the lyrics as the music took on a very sinister industrial sound which was appropriate given the haunting lyrical content.
On the fourth song, “Soul Wound (Phase V),” the music heads more into a synth heavy direction along with some other different sounding compositions. Actually, one of the arrangements reminded of something that you might have heard from The Police, which goes to show how this album is utterly diverse in terms of Matt’s musical influences. The last song on the album, “The Great Deluge of the Final Earth,” is a cataclysmic finale and starts off with a very heavy sounding guitar part. I felt as though the bombastic drum parts were extremely solid sounding and towards the end of there song the music begins to transition into a more trippy celestial style to conclude the mind-altering listening experience.
Overall, what stood out the most for me on Pale Cremation’s “Alta Stranezza,” is that Matt has really become a master at incorporating all his different influences. Having followed Pale Cremation from the very first release as well as knowing Matt since his days as the bassist in bands like Scrape the Earth and Mournful Cries, I really do believe he has become a strong composer and his opened mindedness to different types of music can appeal to wide range of music fans. Also, unlike those bands and artists that are creating music to chase trends, Matt is a passionate fan going against the grain and bringing together all the different styles of music he enjoys to create his own unique sounding compositions which seems to sound more profound on each new album.
Check out the entire album below :
Pale Cremation Bandcamp:
