Father Murphy – ‘Anyway Your Children Will Deny It’ (Aagoo)

…have you done with the Father Ted jokes? Now…

Father Murphy are an Italian trio, who are about that musical point where seventies horror films, the folky point of prog-rock and a delightfully disturbing psychedelia meet. It is, as the press release cheerfully points out, the latest of a series of albums investigating the band’s favourite themes: ‘life, death, love, religion and even more death.’

If this is sounding like it might be a heavy metal sort of album, then it’s definitely the black metal sort, where it edges towards the arthouse, further away from the mosh pit and air guitar riffs, and is seemingly very dark indeed. Drones, chillingly basic rhythms, a funereal pace…this is not a Lionel Richie-style album, just in case you still thought I was going to let up.

It’s not a letting up, but the final two tracks here ‘In The Flood, With The Flood’ and ‘Don’t Let Yourself Be Hurt This Time’
stay true to the aesthetic, yet offer a little more…hope, almost. It will be a bleak vision for many to cope with, but those who enter here will not abandon hope, once their eyes adjust to the gloom…

Anyway Your Children Will Deny It is released on Aagoo on March 5.