Hesperia is a one man black metal project from Italy, who came to life in 1997. It's latest release, "Fra li Monti Sibillini" is the eighth full-length album; two demos have also been released. I wanted to like this album—-honestly and truly. When its good, it is good. Case in point goes to the first two songs, “Fra Le Nevi De Li Monti Sibillini (Preludio)” and “La Grotta De La Sibilla Atto I: L'Qrrivo A L'Hostaria,” are two examples of how good and yet frustrating this album can be. The former is an intro that, while atmopsheric and even a little theatrical, goes absolutely no where—-it doesnt really even lead in to the next song. It's nearly three minutes long but could have made the same point by cutting that time in half.

“La Grotta De…” begins interesting. The bass is audible and well worth hearing, the centerpiece in a movement that's heavy but cinematic in scope. However the build up to the black metal is ruined moot after the 2:41 mark when the song kills its own momentum is killed by an folk/atmo mid section that is extremely unexciting. It's baffling because the song before and after is good. At under 5 mins, I'm not sure why it didn't that break to begin with. That reveals two other problems with the album: song length and pacing. That atmo part in the aforementioned song ruined the pacing of the song AND made it seem twice as long. Never a good sign. Unfortunately, out of all the full-length songs, that one is one of the shortest. So you can imagine just how the longer ones fair. Doom is my favorite genre and I love prog so I'm not a stranger to long songs. But they have to be long for a reason…it had to make sense.

I feel like every song here includes these quiet/folk/atmo/ambient/whatever sections just for the hell of it. It all sounds disjointed and tiresome. All the songs feel like they could lose at least two or three minutes off their runtime. But the actual black metal moments are much more agreeable and I could see this getting a much better response if they focused more on those. Songs like “La Grotta De La Sibilla Atto III: La Fuga/La Salvezza,” find a better balance between the band's identities and dynamics, at least in places. The eleven minute “Cecco D'ascoli Atto II: L'Inquisizione/Il Rogo,” would have fared much better if it didn't slow down to minimalistic textures so often. Every time the song picks up its energy and shows its blackened head, it comes to a dead stop for needless fluff.

This album certainly isn't terrible but it's a trudge to get through. If the band can tighten up their songs, I can see it making album much more engaging. However, this album definitely reaches too far and too often for ideas that don't quite meld into the songs very well. I'm going to give it a four but I could understand anyone giving it an extra point or two either way but it's just not working for me.