Umberto (3) – Prophecy Of The Black Widow

Even though he has heavily cribbed from Goblin and Fabio Frizzi on this LP (the bass/synth lines almost veer on outright plaigarism), this set of cuts manages to carve its own identity (along with the early incarnation of Mata Suspiria Vision, these new millenial generational 'horror' inspired artsites were the first to sign post the heavily copied 80s synth merchants that were to come (culminating in the 'Stranger Things' phenomenon that we have now). Personally, this musical 'style' is now just repeating itself and is pretty reduntant on all levels (forcing itself in to a creative brick wall many moons ago). It's hard to hear this LP now and not feel it is tired because of the all 'imitators' that have followed in its wake (all these LP's to an imaginery film' have become pretty predictable and boring).... There's only two recent 'horror' scores out there that still stand up - Girl with all the Gifts by Cristobal Tapia de Veer and It Follows by Richard Vreeland - mainly because despite using that old school synth 'sound - these soundtracks have true power via dirty, filthy and unsociable drones...

"Temple Room" is a solid giallo epic, well structured remake of old school italo-horror style. "The Psychic" is a weak number with a percussive line and growling synths that mar the piece. A heroic melody arrives and continues making this track one to skip. Next we have "Red Dawn" starting with a vapid synth drone, but it picks up quickly with stark bass and pads. Somewhat lifeless but still evocative. Another tightly quantized number, "Widow Of The Web" finishes the side. Although it has extremely dry production like the other tracks, we see a looseness and blurry synth lines that soften the metronomic bass line of another joint well suited for slasher gore. Totally ridiculous synth-distorto-guitar but valuable nonetheless.

The B side leads with "Black Candles", an introspective number with a creepy metallic marimba line and cheesy faux-vox. Darkly romantic with a searching resonant lead. Another appearance of epic synth-vox on "Night Stalking" that quickly jumps into a cheesy funk number with annoying modulated lead, woodblock and predictable bell melody. Some cool components but otherwise ruined by unnecessary elements. The best track title of the album award goes to "Someone Chasing Someone Through A House". No chase music here though and the track almost feels like a throw-away jam. Watery synths and a portamento synth bass attempt to herald a cyber-fantasy zoner but the results here fall flat. "Everything Is Going To Be Okay" is an almost feel-good montage track that sounds like it would have been at home on the Drive soundtrack.

A few hits and a few misses but worthwhile to italian horror soundtrack aficionados. Somewhat weak as an LP, i feel like this could have been stronger as a 7" of the tracks that bookend the album.

I absolutely love this album. It has some of the best synth-horror tracks to be recorded in quite some time. The opening Temple Room is very memorable, and I find myself humming the track often now. The final track, Everything Is Going To Be Okay, is one great way to end an album. Overall, the album isn't as funky as the first Umberto album, but it is really good none-the-less, and well worth tracking down.

To me, Matt Hill as Umberto is doing so much better soundtrack-esqe work than Steve Moore is currently with whatever he is doing...I'm shocked that this Umberto project hasn't been given as much respect as Moore has received. Don't get me wrong, I love all the Moore albums out (Lovelock, Zombi, & Rossi included) - but in terms of horror-score style - Umberto achieves this aura so much more efficiently. If you have a thing for slasher films, or really '70s/'80s cheese films in general...Umberto is some music you'll most likely enjoy.