Umberto
The Night Has a Thousand Screams
Release Date: Oct 29, 2012
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Rock Action
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Album Review: The Night Has a Thousand Screams by Umberto
Fairly Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 6.1/10
Pieces is a slasher horror feature from 1982 that revolves around a serial killer who tries to construct a jigsaw puzzle from human body parts. The idea of bastardizing existing forms appears to hold great appeal for Kansas City musician Matt Hill, who records schlocky instrumental fare indebted to a broad range of Z-grade giallo peddlers under the Umberto name. His prior work, of which the deathly Not Not Fun LP Prophecy of the Black Widow was a highlight, provided, in Hill's own words, "soundtracks to films that don't exist".
Based on rating C+
Once a member of prog heavies Expo ’70, multi-instrumentalist Matt Hill works a darker ambience into his work as Umberto; his new Night Has A Thousand Screams is the score to an early ’80s Spanish slasher film from which the album’s title is roughly translated. The threatening dissonance, eerie synths, and throbbing urgency of the album unravel an experience just as menacing and delightfully cheesy as you’d expect from an ’80s horror movie. The tropes of horror soundtracks are all here in various states.
Opinion: Very Good
Umberto is a great name. If you’re an Italian viscount. Or if you’re Matt Hill, synth and bass player from Expo 70, and you’re looking for something to call your solo cinematic side project.‘Night Of A Thousand Screams’, released via Mogwai member Stuart Braithwaite’s label Rock Action, consists of music first performed at this year’s Glasgow Film Festival.