Emerging from Belluno, Italy in 1998, DELIRIUM X TREMENS have recently released this new album "TROI" (which means "Path"). Dedicated to the tales of their home and filled with the spirit of their native music, "TROI" is Metal infused with the spirit of the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy. Based around native legends and stories, this is almost a concept album but it feels much more natural than that. Below you'll find a link for the official video to "Col di Lana, Mount of Blood" and I cannot recommend it enough; but I don't want to get ahead of myself here.

With a unique accompaniment of bagpipes, "Ancient Wings" wastes no time in setting itself apart from the crowd. The tempo changes here give you short breaks as if letting you catch your breath before allowing another wave to smash you in the face knocking that air right back out. A very patriotic sounding arrangement takes us in a unique direction with "Col do Lana, Mount of Blood" but it isn't long before the brutal shredding bullies its way back in. A Folk sort of Metal underlies the music here but it never detracts from it. "Owl" is an interesting track with actual owl hoots; almost highlighted by some gutteral howls after, which I believe was a great stylistic choice meant to mimic the hooting.

"The Dead of Stone" and "Spettri nella Steppa" include deep-voiced Itlain being spoken with resonance; which I'm hoping is as dramatic in Italian as it is to someone who doesn't speak the language. Unsettling as it is, this is the exact element that puts you off-balance for the crushing track that follows. "Spettri nella Steppa" begins with whistling and some acoustic guitar, before the spoken words quietly intercede; it is a much calmer segment than most of what the album offers. There is chanting here accompanied by, of all things, a harmonica. They blend into each other in a way that makes it hard to hear both at once. This would be annoying if I could understand Italian at all, but instead this makes the song incredibly haunting and mysterious to me. Eventually it fades into a brutal song that is completely at odds with this opening but DXT weave the two disparate sounds through the track and I have to say, it works to make what I would call the standout song of the tracklist.

Another fantastic track, "The Picture" starts off with the sounds of woodworking and melts into pummeling drums that effortlessly give way to spoken word and back again, blending the opposing sounds and concepts as smooth as velvet. Before I knew it, five and a half minutes had passed and it was only the fading sounds of crickets around a campfire that brought me back down to earth. Acoustic guitars and conversing voices lead us into the final track, "Ombre nel Bosco", where people toast one another while crows caw into the fading voices for a great nondescript way to close out the album.

I could spend a lot more time talking about this album, from the BATHORY cover of "Song to Hall Up High" (which is almost as beautiful as the original) to the pure Death Metal of "When the Mountains Call the Storm" and "The Picture". Grimey and clean mix well with Folk and Death Metal on "Troi" and DELIRIUM X TREMENS are an unsung band that I think deserve a lot more attention.  I really struggled with scoring this one; there honestly wasn't  a lot to find wrong with it in my mind. Sure there are a few production hiccups, but nothing big; this is some of the most original and memorable stuff I have heard in a very long time.

So for me, in my own personal opinion, there are no alterations that I would make which would dramatically improve the quality of the work here, for to be blunt, I seriously loved it. After I spent about fifteen minutes agonizing over the idea of giving a perfect score, I realized that having to search for reasons to give a lower score was just as bad as making up reasons to boost a score. If a nit-picking person like me couldn't find enough reasons to lower the score by even one point, then that is proof that this score is well deserved. So after all of those excuses to explain my opinion, I give DELIRIUM X TREMENS' "Troi" my first and so far only, perfect score.