#sodality

All’improvviso ma non sorprendentemente arriva il secondo capitolo Benediction dei Sodality. Ancora più della prima parte, uscita l’anno scorso, stavolta i polacchi superano loro stessi proponendo un black metal ancora più orrorifico, tangibile nei riff ma astratto nella forma. I brani sono fatti da riff che si susseguono quasi come fossero jam session senza però perdersi nei trip mentali dei singoli musicisti. Tutti accorrono alla realizzazione di un incubo sonoro dove, ancora una volta ma meglio che mai, la voce di Mark of the Devil (attivo anche nei Cultes des Ghoules) è davvero l’elemento centrale attorno al quale tutto il resto ruota. Ancora una volta il punto di riferimento è Attila Csihar ma, stavolta, ancora più performativa. Pianti, gemiti, orgasmi, vomitate, urla e imprecazioni gutturali fuoriescono nei registri più disparati per aumentare l’atmosfera nera e mortifera dell’album. Piccoli rintocchi di tastiere, fischi di chitarre e canti gregoriani sono i ritocchi che rifiniscono questa nera perla che si piazza in top 3 dell’anno.

The Church celebrates on September 5 the Feast of Mother Teresa, a universal symbol of God's merciful and preferential love for the poor and forgotten.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on 26 August 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia, the youngest of three children.

She attended a youth group called Sodality, run by a Jesuit priest at her parish, and her involvement opened her to the call of service as a missionary nun.

She joined the Sisters of Loretto at age 17 and was sent to Calcutta where she taught at a high school.

She contracted tuberculosis and was sent to rest in Darjeeling. It was on the train to Darjeeling that she received her calling — what she called "an order" from God to leave the convent and work and live among the poor. 

At this point, she did not know that she was to found an order of nuns, or even exactly where she was to serve.

"I knew where I belonged, but I did not know how to get there," she said once, recalling the moment on the train.

Confirmation of the calling came when the Vatican granted her permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and fulfill her calling under the Archbishop of Calcutta.

She started working in the slums, teaching poor children, and treating the sick in their homes.

She was joined a year later by some of her former students and together they took in men, women, and children who were dying in the gutters along the streets and cared for them.

In 1950, the Missionaries of Charity were born as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta.

In 1952, the government granted them a house from which to continue their service among Calcutta's forgotten.

The congregation very quickly grew from a single house for the dying and unwanted to nearly 500 around the world. 

Mother Teresa set up homes for AIDS sufferers, for prostitutes, for battered women, and orphanages for poor children.

She often said that the poorest of the poor were those who had no one to care for them and no one who knew them.

She remarked with sadness and desolation of millions of souls in the developed world whose spiritual poverty and loneliness was such an immense cause of suffering.

She was a fierce defender of the unborn saying:

"If you hear of some woman who does not want to keep her child and wants to have an abortion, try to persuade her to bring him to me. I will love that child, seeing in him the sign of God's love."

Mother Teresa died on 5 September 1997.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 19 October 2003 and was canonized by Pope Francis on 4 September 2016.

She is the patron saint of World Youth Day and the Missionaries of Charity, the order she founded. She is also a co-patron of the Archdiocese of Calcutta.

Mother Teresa once said:

"A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.

The Church celebrates on Septermber 5 the feast of Mother Teresa, a universal symbol of God's merciful and preferential love for the poor and forgotten.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on 26 August 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia, the youngest of three children.

She attended a youth group called Sodality, run by a Jesuit priest at her parish, and her involvement opened her to the call of service as a missionary nun.

She joined the Sisters of Loretto at age 17 and was sent to Calcutta where she taught at a high school.

She contracted tuberculosis and was sent to rest in Darjeeling.

It was on the train to Darjeeling that she received her calling — what she called "an order" from God to leave the convent, then work and live among the poor. 

At this point, she did not know that she was to found an order of nuns, or even exactly where she was to serve.

"I knew where I belonged, but I did not know how to get there," she said once, recalling the moment on the train.

Confirmation of the calling came when the Vatican granted her permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and fulfill her calling under the Archbshop of Calcutta.

She started working in the slums, teaching poor children, and treating the sick in their homes.

She was joined a year later by some of her former students. They took in men, women and children who were dying in the gutters along the streets and cared for them.

In 1950, the Missionaries of Charity were born as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta.

In 1952, the government granted them a house from which to continue their service among Calcutta's forgotten.

The congregation very quickly grew from a single house for the dying and unwanted to nearly 500 around the world. 

Mother Teresa set up homes for AIDS sufferers, prostitutes, battered women, and orphanages for poor children.

She often said that the poorest of the poor were those who had no one to care for them and no one who knew them.

And she often remarked with sadness and desolation of millions of souls in the developed world whose spiritual poverty and loneliness was such an immense cause of suffering.

She was a fierce defender of the unborn saying:

"If you hear of some woman who does not want to keep her child and wants to have an abortion, try to persuade her to bring him to me. I will love that child, seeing in him the sign of God's love."

Mother Teresa died on 5 September 1997.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 19 October 2003. She was canonized by Pope Francis on 4 September 2016.

Mother Teresa once said:

"A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace."

She also said:

"Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness." 

Nati da una costola dei Lvcyfire e da un'altra dei Cultes des Ghoules i Sodality sono un’oscura identità della Polonia che entra nella corte della Norma Evangelium Diaboli: un contratto che conferma la qualità di questo album. Quello che sentirete non è il classico black metal di stampo religious ma un black metal gorgheggiante con diverse sorprese: in quasi quaranta minuti i Sodality confezionano un’oscura opera caotica, complessa e misteriosa, caratterizzata da un songwriting non convenzionale che alterna strutture irregolari, atmosfere occulte e intermezzi dissonanti. Quando si parla di questo tipo di black metal a molti verrebbe in mente gli Skáphe o i Serpent Column: dimenticateveli subito perché Benediction pt.1 non ha assolutamente quell’astratta densità dai riff vorticosi e fangosi. Anzi, le chitarre sono aperte come da tradizione swedish; eppure si dividono fra ipnotiche e ritmiche; fra interludi visionari e aggressioni bestiali. La batteria si occupa di rendere il tutto più dinamico attraverso i cambi di tempo e dirigendo letteralmente le composizioni, come un infernale maestro d’orchestra. Il basso è in primissimo piano, a volte minimale e a volte è libero di percorrere le proprie personali strade, come in "Rapture". Questo brano in particolare inizia con un urlo lancinante che sembra la sirena di un ambulanza e porta i Sodality a confrontarsi direttamente con Attila Csihar, col De Mysteriis dom Sathanas, con gli Ondskapt e coi Funeral Mist ma rimanendo in un personalissimo girone. "The Nativity aka Heathen Angel" è il fulcro dell’album: una traccia diabolica, visionaria che ha tanto di diavoli quanto di streghe e fantasmi. Cori disturbanti e insani lamenti vanno ad intrecciarsi con arpeggi semi-acustici e atmosfere terrificanti. Benediction pt. 1 è uno dei migliori album black metal rilasciati nel 2023.