From what I've been able to sort out, A Bullet Sounds The Same In Every Language seems to be some kind of abstract rock opera that features three bands from the Italian avant-metal underground all contributing original music to a singular concept that has something to do with...well, I'm not really sure, the album is split into three acts and appears to have a central character named Sally Realdeal who might be a cyborg? Despite my inability to figure out what the conceptual element to this CD is all about, I have nevertheless been raging to this fucker for a good two months. The music on this disc points to Italy having in it's possession one hell of an avant-heavy scene, and all three of the bands featured here kill it with their contributions.

The disc opens with Act i: Courage, Fork, And Knife, as played by the "sci-fi grind n' roll" band Inferno. I already knew these guys from their first full length CD that came out in 2004, which was good stuff...but now Inferno sound even more intense, and have apparently been hard at work since their debut fine-tuning their style of weird, "sci-fi" metalcore. They open with the drifting dark ambient techno of "Inferno Overture", which is actually performed by an artist known as Reeks, but after a minute or two of that, Inferno kicks in with their ripping, rocking metalcore-meets-space-prog attack, all churning mathmetal riffage and awesome old-school anologue synth sounds, like Rick Wakeman jamming with Botch! Sounds whack, but holy fuck does this rule. The metal is full-on, crushing hard rock riffs colliding with chaotic knots of angular crush and blastbeats, very much like Botch or maybe Dillenger but with more rock and MORE PROG (especially on the Magma-esque "Sa

lly Realdeal") and those awesome omnipresent synths warbling and bleeping prominently in the mix. AWESOME!

Next is Act II: The Soft Humanoid Parade as performed by Psychofagist. These guys are a well-kept secret outside of the Italian metal scene, but fans of schizoid avant deathgrind fans that haven't heard Psychofagist yet will probably blow a synapse when they catch an earful of their hyper-technical death metal. Their segment of this opera begins with the tinkling atonal piano intro for "Unstable Parte II" that sounds like it was lifted from a 20th century modern classical piece, but then it's obliterated by the impossibly intricate and dissonant math-damaged death metal, a whirlwind of angular riffs, fucked up time signature contortions, jazz basslines, and dramatic clean vocals devoured by fierce death roars. Then a bluesy Hammond organ appears to introduce "Il Respetto Di Nostro Signore Per Gli Invertebrati" before the song again blooms into warped deathgrind riffing, chaotic blastbeats, and a country music sample that appears in the middle of the song. The last t

rack "Veil|Inconsistence" is the weirdest, beginning with electronic pulses and abstract vocal noises screamed over a plunky guitar line, then moving into dizzying no-wave damaged grind, that atonal 20th century piano appeaaring again but now over a looping funky bassline and free jazz drumming, huge stop/stop start riffs, vicious screaming that's heavily processed by electronic fx, slippery dissonant riffage, crushing and atonal and challenging, a mix of Fantomas and Gorguts and Cynic wound together into an alien avantblast spasm. Immensely cool.

The third and last act of the disc is Act III: (Epilogue) Narciso, from Ovo. I've heard Ovo in all of their different guises before, but this is the duo at their absolute slowest and heaviest and most threatening. If you liked the weirdo no-wave tinged doom of their Load album, you'll love their contribution to this split, a thirteen minute nightmare ritual that opens with Stefania Pedretti whispering evil recitations in that creepy little-girl-is-actually-a-cemetary-witch voice of hers over minimal electro-acoustic crunch and drone that builds into a super downtuned doom riff, the guitar distorted into a thin, toxic buzz, the drums clanging in slow motion and accompanied by shrill metallic sounds that sound like pipes being struck. It would remind me alot of Khanate if not for those creepy girly whispers. But then the song takes an abrupt left turn at the nine minute mark as Ovo suddenly starts banging away on a kind of industrial no-wave jam, all skronky scrabbly

guitar noise and screeching and spastic double bass drumming and atonal pipe-smacking dirge that lasts for two minutes or so and then sinks right back into the black tar, now with Stefania doing this weird throat-singing thing that sounds even more psychotic, the guitar becomes even more abstracted as the ends of the strings around the tuning pegs are plucked and scraped, closing the song in a black fug of chiming strings, heaving breathing sounds, and amplifier hum.

An amazing quasi-conceptual compilation that showcases the three weirdest, most freaked out denizens of the Italian metal underground, each one with their own unique, experimental sound, all wildly different from one another but somehow all flowing together perfectly in this crazed avant-metal collection. The packaging is terrific too, all metallic gold and black with the the cover comprised of a printed sleeve that holds three seperate gold sheets, one for each artist, that include the lyrics, track info, artist info, and artwork, designed so that the different sheets can be switched around to give the album different covers. Highly recommended.