Critic's evaluation
Just over seven years after the release of Destinorama, his debut album, Do Culto ao Coma resumes its activities with the release of Imago. Produced by the band itself and by Filipe Coelho, the album is a product that intrigues the viewer since its extremely metaphorical cover art.
A classic rope setting brings a rain of intense colors to the awakening of A Euforia Entre Nós. These colors are responsible for determining the energy spent to taste the melody of the song and, in this case, it is found in the heights with a weight sound of Leandro TG Mendes' guitar protagonism. Despite its prominence, the harmony is also dominated by a bass of tense and almost dark lines. When the vocalist Thiago Holzmann enters, his thin and slightly ghostlike voice gives an interesting counterpoint to the melodic weight. There is also an amplitude in the rhythmic aggressiveness of the song, something that happens in the second verse.
Em Antes Que o Tédio Me Vença is the Leonardo Nascimento's drums that pull the melody. Here, it is equally dense and heavy as in A Euforia Entre Nós. But unlike her sister, the present track is more dirty, from riffs with flutes more inclined to grunge than necessarily to heavy metal. One thing that begins to come true in the listener's mind is that the sound signature of Do Culto ao Coma is undeniably Guilherme Costa's bass. His intense weight that even suggests feelings of anger and vengeful contempt lives to wander through the harmony carrying and distributing the dark and the impetuous. In spite of everything, Antes Que o Tédio Me Vença is in its essence a metallic ballad.
A sinister atmosphere is formed. But not sinister in the sense of something dark, but sinister in the sense of expectation, surprise and the consequent fear of uncertainty. All this is transmitted with the notes on the keyboard, which echo in the listener's ear and make him shiver because he notices he is entering a more unknown environment. The echoing voice, whose words adhere to this obscurantism, makes Imagogia a single B side penetrating in its essence and related, even if distant, to the lyrical themes of Evanescence.
Coming out of this creepy mud, Tempos de Dor presents a song based on hard rock with its guitar in higher riff almost inserting details of sensuality. Here, Holzmann puts more of his vocal range clearly and cleanly next to the melody. Such factors, together with an extension of the contagion effect, make the music a product made in a commercial way. In fact, a single that deserves the confidence.
If in A Euforia Entre Nós the melody and the lyrical interpretation already had a ghostly thing to do, in Desrazão this characteristic adds to an intoxicating melancholy and a demotivating lyric in whose words place the listener's energy at an extremely low level.
In O Céu Sombrio de Ontem, the sound in the foreground is subtly complex and formed by a military marching groove joined to a team of strings in a lower tone that again creates an environment flooded with melancholy. Made based on the blues, the truth is that it moves towards something more constructivist, with a positive message regarding its content.
Groovy is the word that defines Apesar de Calado. It is in it that the bass has an absolute protagonism in creating a contagious and engaging melody. And this jam is completed by a drum line equally groovy making the sound an example of melody that mixes psychedelia, metal, blues and hardrock. For some, this single may refer to Led Zeppelin. For others, Black Sabbath. The important thing is that the music was, yes, influenced and based by this same school. After all, it has weight, contagion, presence and competence.
With a happier hardrock sound, O Afeto de Schrödinger continues to follow the same bias of Apesar de Calado and Tempos de Dor. For here the listener also feels conquered, rocked, seduced. Speaking of stimulus, it's difficult even to leave the head still without surrendering to the impulses offered by the sound elements of the song.
A guitar in echo effect builds a distorted riff, but in a warm and contagious tone. Behold, again, those feelings of suspense and expectation are established by knowing how Isocrônico will evolve, whether to keep the hardrock line or to go another way. The truth is that the track walks between progressive, pop and electronic, a mixture that creates an intoxicating and psychedelic atmosphere that gains weight with the duet established between Holzmann and Chay Alves.
A punch, a heavy instrumental. Be it how to define Imago's jigsaw, it is undeniable that Eterno Retorno is a heavy, metallic and stimulating single. In the track, the idea that string musicians have a chemistry with each other is realized, which enables the creation of growing and exciting lines. In the progressive structure, the song has, besides the longest duration among the tracks of the disc, keyboard solos, a transcendental atmosphere and blues guitars.
Being an independent work, Imago surprises for the quality and competence of the musicians. Each note, each tonality, each sound created goes beyond a notion of professionalism of a band that is still in the beginning of its trajectory. After all, this is only the second work of Do Culto ao Coma.
Walking freely among subgenres of strong identity in the midst of rock such as hardrock, heavy metal, acid rock, progressive and even nude metal, Imago shows that each one of the four musicians of the group knows what they are doing and where they want to go. Besides, of course, showing that they have a wide repertoire baggage.
With an imposing mix, something that cooperates for the greatness of sound and for the good understanding of the sounds created by the instruments, Imago has melancholic and dark harmonies that are mixed with lyrics of antagonistic energies like sadness and joy, but both are kind of aspleep in some way.
Other than that, the disc has a cover artwork that must be noticed. Made by Kennedy Martins, it brings a lot of the influence of the iconic Pink Floyd covers. After all, it holds meanings and metaphors from the most varied interpretations. In any case, it is instigating and well done.
Released on 01/29/2021 in an independent way, Imago shows that Do Culto ao Coma is competent, has musicality and a good predisposition to create dark music. In any case, it is indisputable that the record has more sound punchs than soft and transcendental melodies.
