Thanks to their conceptual albums, lavish costumes and mythology-inspired videos, Italy’s Fleshgod Apocalypse have transformed symphonic death metal from a novel mash-up into a cohesive subgenre. Multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer Francesco Paoli founded the Perugian group in 2007 while still fronting Hour of Penance. They made an immediate splash with 2009’s Oracles, whose collision of speeding death metal, neoclassical fret-work and string arrangements explodes with ambition. Yet Fleshgod Apocalypse were only getting started. Arriving in 2013 and 2016 respectively, Labyrinth and King unfold like epic poems from antiquity: the orchestration soars; the keyboards sparkle; and soprano Veronica Bordacchini cuts through walls of demonic howls with true operatic splendour. If there’s a band brutal enough for the pit yet glorious enough for the great concert halls of Europe, it’s surely Fleshgod Apocalypse.