DEVA - Murther - Review on METALITALIA
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 Deva are collecting appreciations everywhere; the band from Milan active since a few years released in 2010 a good debut album titled "Between Life And Dreams", which allowed them to secure a ​​ more than deserved respected status on the gothic scene, since then. We witness now, four years later, as the aforementioned record was just the seed of a beautiful tree, which shows its ripe buds right now, with this new "Murther".
Curious mispronunciation of the words 'mother' and 'murder', mother and murderous, the title itself is already enough to introduce us to unsetting and dichotomous concepts, an apparent single entity whereas coexist the ultimate expression of love (the mother) and hate (murder).
Concepts, therefore, strong and unsetting, which reflects in their natural mirror of a dark and romantic music, decadent in some passages, but aggressive in others, but always characterized by high emotionality, through the modern stylistic mark of this band.
Deva, however, have not been still during the last four years: they went through a split that saw almost all of the old band members leave, with the exception of Beatrice Palumbo and Federico Salerno, voice and guitar respectively.
Not too bad anyway, because it's right out of the musical skills of these two that came the ideas from which these fifteen tracks sprang; fifteen tracks well articulated, bouncing back and forth between moments of great tension and suffused melodic passages, always wrapped by a bitter hint of Gothic gloom.
While listening, there are several moments which leave you somewhat admired: we are struck by the softness of Palumbo’s vocal lines, on the most romantic moments such as "Decadence" or the more than refined "My Sweetest Pain", but also the power of the guitars on tracks such as the opener "Can I Be Saved" or the dark "Lady of Time" which deserve a round of applause. Also, amazing the wide space left to sophisticated orchestrations, heritage of a more symphonic than gothic metal, which cannot but remind us of the pentagram drawn by Mark Jansen and his Epica.
A similarity certainly evident (the aforementioned "Lady Of Time" would not be out of place on "Design Your Universe" of the Dutch band), but which is not going to the detriment of neither the dark gothic atmosphere, nor the strong progressive variations that wraps almost every track of the album.
Drama and technique, lights and shadows, ambition and despair alternate like on a merry-go-round all along the listening, and we reach the end of this hour of music not even noticing the time spent, until the tragic and theatrical final track "Lilith" indicates that the curtain is falling, in a way maybe somehow abrupt, though with no other desires or unanswered questions, but just a sated sense of satisfaction.
"Murther", if you have not figured out yet, is a great record, with the advantage of a great fluency combined with a good variety of styles.
A rare combination, which allows the Milanese band to stand on the crowded Italian gothic scene as a reality of absolute value.
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by  Dario "CryingGuitar" Cattaneo
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