In Load's nice'n'perverse way, their "doom" capitalization record-- Ovo's Miastenia-- is in fact an Italian noise record, made by a married couple who seem to recognize only a few American imports of any kind: godheadSilo, Man Is the Bastard, Melvins...little else. Though the duo have occasionally deigned to tour the states, they've mostly done it while wearing masks, and Miastenia is their first official U.S. release. (Drummer Bruno Dorella runs one of the premier Italian weird labels, Bar La Muerte, on which Ovo's music is released in Europe.) For what it's worth, Miastenia will likely be the most romantic metal album this year; Dorella and Stefania Pedretti sound like a couple. And if one's love-life ranks low on the list of things prized in muddy dirges-- bass tone, brutality, brown notes-- their low frequency, overdue American invasion might do the trick on its own.
In an idiom where the drummer's job is to not get so high that he forgets to hit the floor tom every 30 seconds or so, Dorella's groovin' double-bass and tom sweeps, as on "Anime Morte", give Miastenia, well, swing. Their growly groove is less Big Business lazy and more golden-90s bass-band (Regraped, Hammerhead, Karp), with the addition of Pedretti's Yoko Ono beatboxing. On "Voodoo" she whispers, chirping like Satomi Deerhoof, slow cello gathering speed behind her; one U.S. show report had her playing her own dreads with a bow. If there were a part of my body I could get this low and evil, I'd probably play it too.
Pedretti also plays a guitar, tuned and amplified to sound much more like bass (or arriving subway)-- especially on slow stomps like "Due Paia Di Cuori", which sounds like power-violence mixed with Disney vocals, or the slightly quicker paced "Mammut", on which Dorella chews up toms while Pedretti adds, um, melisma to her menacing Gollum screech. In another dimension, Miastenia is battling fellow Load fantasists Forcefield, the good-guy Lord of the Rings Modulators, and Wizardzz for dominance of our planet.
"Miastenia", the 20-minute plus closer, is a goofy death-march with slow, plodding guitar strokes and helium, cookie monster vocals. Bathos, sure, but more intentional than that: Ovo are kinda funny, and they know it. That they deflate every norm worshipped currently in stateside head-banging circles; that's funny too, even if it's obvious they don't exactly belong. No doubt they don't in Italy either.
