This four-piece crust/grind band hails from Trieste, Italy and formed in 2003. The Secret released their first record Luce on Goodfellow Records. After various line-up changes the band finally released their second record Disintoxication in 2008. Since then Goodfellow Records is no longer a functioning label. The Secret found a home in Southern Lord Recordings after an impressive demo was released online. In April of 2010, The Secret recorded Solve Et Coagula at Godcity Studio in Salem, MA with none other than Kurt Ballou of Converge. The album was released on September 28th 2010.
The Secret play a brand of crusty grind that is similar to Cursed and Trap Them. However, you do not want to make the mistake of clumping them with all of the d-beat/hardcore clones out there. While The Secret will remind you of the disbanded Cursed, they still retain a quality of originality that most Cursed or Entombed worship bands are missing. The album begins with “Cross Builder,” a haunting, blackened, sludgy, 5 minute intro song, which features an eerie mood setting guitar lead that will have you shivering while you head bang. The record then blasts through dark crusty grind and doesn’t let up until midway through the album when the 6th song, “Weathermen” drops the first actual slow part that The Secret use. It’s as if tracks 2 through 5 were used to build-up the hammer that drops at the end of “Weathermen.” The record immediately continues to blast on, but this time starts to infuse a bit of mid-pace and slower black-influenced guitar leads. This is never overused or made cheesy by The Secret. It’s just the right amount to add to the darkness of the record. The Secret let up once more on track 8, “Eve Of The Last Day,” where they drop an instrumental song that is extremely heavy and catchy black and doom influenced. The album concludes in the same blackened manner with the song “1968.”
The vocals on this record generally stay the same throughout, but with the album being only 35 minutes, it doesn’t suffer from lack of vocal variation. The singer, Marco Coslovich, is the perfect match for the music with his heavily distorted screams. The lyrics are as expected, dark, anti-religious, and negative towards social institutions. The production is spot on, but that can be expected now from any band that comes out of Kurt Ballou’s Godcity Studio.
This is one of the records that is best described as “solid.” It’s not incredible or genre shattering, but it is very….well…solid. Pick this up if you like dark-imagery in your music and if you miss Cursed but don’t want an exact replica.
See also
order: http://www.southernlord.com/store.php myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thesecret store: http://thesecret.bigcartel.com/
