METALLIAN - Iato

Ucronia - 2019 - GrimmDistribution

Members

Vocals

Kalo Di Pressione, Stigmatized, Miscredente>>FRANCESCO NANO>>Stigmatized, Miscredente

Guitar

Kalo Di Pressione>>FEDERICO PISANO - FRANCESCO NANO

Bass

ANDREA MANIS

Drum

Vultur, Stigmatized, Abduction, Moorays>>LORENZO BALIA>>Vultur, Stigmatized, Abduction, Moorays

History & Biography

Sardinia is an Italian island between Italy and Malta on which plays a band called Iato since 2011. The band was formed out of the ashes of a hardcore band called Ejaculazione HC. Bassist Giuseppe Piga left the act soon. Marchio Di Fabbrica was a 2011 demo. The Dialektik demo appeared two years later. GrimmDistribution issued the band's debut album in 2019. Coming out of the pandemic the band played several shows including Mejlogu Extreme Metal Fest with Vultur, Left In Agony and Engraver in 2023.

Reviews

IATO - UCRONIA - GRIMMDISTRIBUTION
You want under the underground? You got it.
Iato hails from Italy and is comprised of a bunch of former hardcore kids taking it up a notch and grinding like there is no tomorrow. Obvious comparisons are Brutal Truth, including the power violence dual vocals, and Misery Index except this bunch has as many guitar solos as Matteo Salvini has IQ points.
What you get with this bunch certainly is crushing crunching assaulting attacking swift speedy titles with Italian lyrics that go for the jugular. However, the band has a penchant for throwing in melodious rhythms amidst the chaos that are almost half catchy! They do not slow the band down, but certainly throw the listener for a memorable loop. However, do not misunderstand. Iato is violent and will crush a Burzum fan like a ton of bricks landing on tofu. Yup, it's that good. Favourite tracks: Soggetto Alienato with the rare split-second guitar lead, Occhio Unico and the splendid Requiem. Take the elevator down at least seven levels and get your hands on this disc. - Ali "The Metallian"

Interviews

Andrea Manis, the bassist for Iato, turns out to be a professional, friendly and responsive interview partner with a sense of humour in addition to being part of a band that delivers the grinding goods in all seriousness. Ali “The Metallian” speaks to Andrea as the follow-up to the release of the Ucronia album. – 21.11.2020

METALLIAN: Congratulations on the album. It is a heck of an impressive album, which begs the question. How could a band be this impressive and yet be so underground? How many storeys underground do you guys live?
ANDREA: First of all, thank you for listening to our album and contacting us. Being both impressive and underground has always been our peculiarity and, despite the consequent difficulties, we are silently proud of this, actually. In this way, we’re still free to play and do whatever we want and wherever we want without external limits and impositions. However, we’re working hard to spread our music as much as possible as you might imagine. If this were not the case you would not have found us, right?

METALLIAN: Since no one outside your immediate family has ever heard of Iato, and even several family members do not know of the band either, could you please give Metallian’s readers some background on your history?
ANDREA: (Laughs) please do not overestimate our popularity: Our family members actually don’t know what we’re doing together with these fucking instruments! They probably believe we are part of an esoteric cult, but they never ask about it.
What we can say about us is that the band was formed in the Summer of 2011 from the remnants of a punk hardcore band’s ashes in Sardinia, Italy. The band now focuses on extreme metal and grindcore, to describe the sense of distance felt by the members towards our surrounding context and a critical approach towards the world. In the intervening years, we’ve played around Sardinia and Italy to promote our works Marchio Di Fabbrica (2011), Dialektik (2014) and Ucronia of 2019.

METALLIAN: The modesty is endearing. Turns out the man has a sense of humour. Andrea, how did the contracts for the record come about and why is the band signed to more than one label?
ANDREA: The Ukrainian label GrimmDistribution i.e. Satanath Records had been contacted by the other label The Triad Rec, which is from Italy and Malta, to co-produce our album. Aleksey, Satanath’s boss, agreed being so enthusiastic about our new work Ucronia. By doing so, our music has been spread wider through different parts of Europe.

METALLIAN: The band has been around for a number of years and was previously more hardcore-oriented as Ejaculazione HC. If this is correct then why change the monicker and why change the style?
ANDREA: As said before, we started to play music together in a previous punk-hardcore band more than ten years ago. However, some members changed and so did our musical tastes. We needed a new form of music, even more extreme and technical, to vent our increasing hate and anger. At the same time, we still tend to preserve our punk attitude and old-school hardcore approach.

METALLIAN: Of the current members, which were in the previous act and which were not?
ANDREA: Lorenzo Balia (drums), Giuseppe Piga (bass), Federico Pisano (guitar and backing vocals) and Francesco Nano (vocals and second guitar) were the members of the previous punk-hardcore project. In July 2011 the same members started IATO and produced their first demo Marchio Di Fabbrica. In September Giuseppe decided to leave the rest of the band and was quickly replaced by Andrea Manis. And here I am!

METALLIAN: While we are here, are you in any other bands? Alternatively, were you in any other bands before?
ANDREA: Oh yes. Francesco and Lorenzo play together in Stigmatized, another great Sardinian grindcore band. In addition to this, Lorenzo is the drummer for different bands, such as Vultur, the occult Sardinian black metal masters. But they also have other side projects: Francesco plays guitar in Miscredente (punk-hardcore) and Lorenzo is part of numerous other bands and projects, Moorays, which is garage punk, could be taken as an example.

METALLIAN: Coming back to the album, how is the record different stylistically compared to the band's demos?
ANDREA: Compared to the previous works, Marchio Di Fabbrica and Dialektik, you will notice a natural, evolutionary upgrade of our compositions. We believe there’s much more impact and violence. We now feel more mature, not only as humans but also as musicians. We had and have clarity of mind regarding how the new tracks need to sound. We think this is also due to our close-knit friendship as a group.

METALLIAN: Italian titles and lyrics may explain some, but not all, of the band's anonymity. With that said, could you translate and explain the band's monicker and album title?
ANDREA: Of course. As previously underlined, the band’s name sums up the musical concept and the philosophy behind the band. It literally means ‘fracture’, ‘distance;’ in other words the sense of distance perceived by the band towards the surrounding society. We feel we are not part of all of this.
Secondly, the album title, in a certain sense, suggests a new approach to survival here on this fucking planet. ‘Ucronia’- in English ‘Ukronia’ – stands for ‘A place with no time’ or ‘Without time.’ What we know is that we absolutely need to face this life as transcending both physical and mental time, escaping from the cage this crazy society prepared for us: Live work work work work and die.

METALLIAN: What is a good way, or a start, for the average person to undertake this approach and change or escape?
ANDREA: We don’t want to escape from reality actually. On the contrary, we just need to be aware of our human condition and, as the consequence of, being slaves in this sort of a Matrix. In order to raise this awareness, it is necessary to put into question our entire life. By doing so, new answers arrive and gradually we’d be able to join another form of human that plays this game without being absorbed and destroyed by it.

METALLIAN: Clearly, the reference to the matrix is apt. Changing angles, we are not sure about Sardinia here at Metallian Towers, but certainly Italy as a whole has gravitated towards fascism and racism. How do you see this? Is Matteo Salvini, the fascist Senator, a sexy racist hero or is he a sexy racist villain?
ANDREA: Italy has gravitated and still gravitates towards authoritarianism, or ‘Fascism’ if you prefer, but in different forms. Sometimes even those who are in words against fascism still supporting censorship, power propaganda, repression and the destruction of human rights. We’re not sure we want to dedicate more than a few words to politicians and, in particular, Salvini. He’s probably neither sexy nor racist: He’s just a childish clown who wants power and is open to anything to (re)gain it – albeit with no success.

METALLIAN: Isn’t it dangerous to dismiss an openly racist politician as simply a child even if it is all about the lust for power?
ANDREA: We know what you mean. Maybe we have to focus more on the causes of his potential popularity. Each one of these clowns is nothing else than a reflection of our contemporary society. If we understand this and remove the causes, for example acting to open people minds, we’re sure he’ll automatically disappear. Music is one of the best ways to support this process, isn’t it?

METALLIAN: Nigh on perfect answer, Andrea. Obvious question: there are as many guitar solos on the record as there are warm days in the Canadian winter. Why is that? Is that a lack of skill or a conscious decision?
ANDREA: (Lack of) guitar solos, in part, reflect a pure metal approach of some members of the band. It is obviously a conscious decision, taken in order to amalgamate all the music styles loved by each one of us. Nevertheless, with every likelihood in the next album we’ll go in favour of more pondering and thematic notes. What needs to be pointed out is that it’s not absolutely a lack of skill, but a debated choice.

METALLIAN: Let’s talk about specific tracks. My personal favourite tracks are Soggetto Alienato, Occhio Unico and Requiem. Could you say a few words about these?
ANDREA: You chose three different songs from a stylistic point of view, didn’t you? This is probably the demonstration of the fact that, in its uniformity, Ucronia is still an original and heterogeneous album. On the one hand, Soggetto Alienato is one of the most technical tracks, on the other hand Requiem could be considered a sort of a special track, compared to the others, because of its rhythmic and hypnotic sludge riffing. In the middle, we find Occhio Unico, which is very fast at the beginning. It is a mix between violence and powerful and granitic breakdowns.

METALLIAN: Was Requiem written at the same time as the other tracks?
ANDREA: Requiem was the last song to be written. But it does not mean that we’ve changed genres. It was a way to go beyond our limits again, some kind of a new musical experiment. Now we could say that we managed to achieve our goal. It is very often the favourite track of our listeners and we are proud of this.

METALLIAN: We are coming to the end of our interview, Andrea. Before we move on, is there any band news, updates or other items you could share?
ANDREA: We are not playing live shows because of the pandemic chaos. Anyway, we are spending our entire time to write new music even more extreme than ever before so (speaks loudly) brace yourselves! Don’t forget to follow us on our social profiles for more updates, which are https://www.facebook.com/IATOband/ and https://www.instagram.com/iato_band/

METALLIAN: Finally, as you guys know Metallian is the very best website ever. Why do you think that is?
ANDREA: Ahh… we do know it and we immediately inferred it thanks to your interesting questions. Your aphorism Heavy Metal Is Better Than Music confirms it!

Andrea already shared the band’s web URLs. As such, there is little more to add other than Ucronia is an album extreme metal fans need and it is will be another compelling purchase should the next record be as good and extreme as Andrea believes it to be.

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Iato