Ponte Del Diavolo – Fire Blades From The Tomb
Ponte Del Diavolo – Fire Blades From The Tomb
Season Of Mist
Release Date: 16/02/24
Running Time: 42:56
Review by Dark Juan
9/10
Once more I step into the breach for your edification, my dear friends. But before I do that, I want to take a moment with you all. Do I have your rapt attention?
Good.
For once, it is not me moaning, or telling you what the Smellhounds are doing, or gently ribbing Mrs Dark Juan.
Today, Dark Juan is feeling contented and thankful. I get to listen to amazing music and speak to amazing people. I have made friends around the world because of Metal. Ranging from Singapore (TCOMAS’s Daphne Ang) to Brazil (Ever-Metal.com’s own Victor Augusto) to the US (Beth-Ami Heavenstone, Trevor Strnad (RIP)) to the many people of the UK and Welsh Metal scenes (John and Scott from The Machinist, most of my drinking buddies in the West Yorkshire Doom Metal belt (everyone from Aaron Stainthorpe to Izak Gloom (Wolves Of Winter) to Hamish Glencross of Godthrymm) and the likes of Lee-Roy Jenkins (Woven Man) and the mighty Scriv (Lifer – I have no idea why this band is not fucking colossal) from Cymru, as well as our Metal Mum Beth Morait. Not many people can say this. So what if I don’t have much money and can’t support the scene financially? I’m fucking well doing my part in spreading the gospel as much as someone who is able to throw hundreds of pounds at merch, and best of all, I get to entertain folk around the world simply by talking about other, vastly more talented people than I. And meet my heroes. All for the sake of a few hours of my time.
Dark Juan is a lucky man indeed. I am safely housed, more financially stable than I have been in decades, well-fed, respected in my chosen field of employment, frequently permitted to get away with murder in my reviews and I get to spend some of my time listening to the best music the underground has to offer, and occasionally having a bash at some very popular stuff like Filter’s last effort.
I’ll never stop slagging off Warrior Soul, though. Unless they somehow accidentally release a good record. Fucking hell, my blood pressure just went up at the thought of Kory Clarke and his cracked, ruined, out-of-tune voice and lyrics that would make a fucking teenager rip the page out of the notebook and start again. Let us distract ourselves from the overgrown, drug addled manchild and instead drag the glossy, ebon black, ruby-encrusted Platter Of Splatter ™ from out of its velvet lined alcove and activate it by throwing a comically large switch that causes entirely needless sparks whilst cackling maniacally.
Yes, Dark Juan is a cartoon Goth.
This time, the Platter is spinning the melancholic delights of Italy’s Ponte Del Diavolo, a band from Turin who have been active since 2020. Dark Juan has not had them commended to his attention before and picked them from the review list simply because he liked the name. This has not gone well in the past (Dunwich Dreams), but the Italian misery enthusiasts being listened to here are thankfully a quantum leap in quality compared to those deluded Americans and play a style of music that encompasses the twisted sexuality of Gothic Rock, the primal savagery of Black Metal and the leaden heaviness of Doom Metal. And being Italian, it’s done in fucking STYLE.
The opening song, ‘Demone’ sets out a statement of intent like few Dark Juan has heard, starting with a full-on Black Metal blast that would have knocked your faithful correspondent straight on his fat arse if he wasn’t already sat on it. It does settle down a bit after that and the vocals of Erba Del Diavolo cut through the murk to caress the spine of the listener before slipping a glistening stiletto elegantly between the ribs. She’s a dangerous and capricious mistress, this singer, sharing that same intoxicating mix of alluring sensuality and shocking violence that Siouxsie Sioux was so adept at transmitting through her work.
I should mention that “Fire Blades From The Tomb” has a very unique sound because Ponte Del Diavolo employs two bass players and only one guitarist. For a band that has based its sound in a large part of the famously bass-averse, wasp-like buzzing of Black Metal this is unusual, but also pleasing, as the album has more bottom end than a warehouse full of cloned, fiendishly jabbering Nicki Minaj-es, all furiously twerking their colossal arses at the same time and causing ripples in the space-time continuum from the incessant, never-ending noise of their augmented arse cheeks clapping together.
What a repulsive, repellent, yet also disturbingly alluring thought.
Anyway, now I have dragged myself back from contemplating terrible Pop musicians and what they are doing with their butts, I must say that mixing Goth, Black Metal and Doom is absolutely fucking INSPIRED. Sounding not unlike My Dying Bride crossed with Emperor and Crowbar and the Banshees (the end of ‘Covenant’ amply displaying this with wide-eyed, little girl lost vocals, slow tempo and downtuned guitar punishment) Ponte Del Diavolo are fucking miles better than Theatres Des Vampires (who have totally lost the plot over the past ten years), vastly superior to the likes of Mandragora Scream, and much more interesting than latter-day Lacuna Coil, although Ponte Del Diavolo share the same wide-eyed excitement and enthusiasm in performance as the elder statespeople (I have literally watched grown men walk into walls when Cristina Scabbia walked past them in a party frock. Oh, alright. It was me who blundered into the immovable object, but I was one of many) of Italian Gothic Metal’s first two records, and significantly heavier than both.
That is not to say that the band are not capable of light and shade though – ‘Red As The Sex Of She Who Lives In Death’ (which ranks as one of the finest song titles I have ever heard) cranks down the savagery in favour of fractured emotion and abject misery. For three minutes and eighteen seconds anyway, before the band either got bored or accidentally stomped on the go-pedal a bit too hard as the song transforms from miserablism to Finnish forest Black Metal to crushing Gothic Doom. It’s fucking brilliant and the highlight of the album for Dark Juan.
Yes, if you like your music heavy and aggressive, yet emotional and heartrending, Ponte Del Diavolo have you covered in a most luxurious fashion indeed. Erba Del Diavolo’s vocals can switch from a soul-soothing, caressing croon to demented jabbering and fiendish howling in less than a second, and it is this vocal capriciousness that adds that certain je ne sais quoi that turns a great band into a fucking brilliant one in the case of Ponte Del Diavolo. Erba is the focal point where all the power is focused – the razor-sharp guitar work, the earthshaking bass and the thunderous drums all combining with her voice to perform some well dodgy ritual violence with Dark Juan’s pleasure centres and render him a dribbling, vapidly grinning mess. Yet again.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Il sistema brevettato di classificazione degli schizzi di sangue di Dark Juan, per i miei amici e lettori italiani. Vi amo tutti!) has fallen hopelessly in love with Ponte Del Diavolo and awards them 9/10 for a fucking fantastic album that slams together three disparate genres and makes them new, exciting, and vibrant again in the process. A mark was deducted for a slightly lifeless drum sound that was sat a little too far back in the mix for the liking of Dark Juan but the record is otherwise fucking flawless.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Demone
02. Covenant
03. Red As The Sex Of She Who Lives In Death
04. La Razza
05. Nocturnal Veil
06. Zero
07. The Weeping Song
LINE-UP:
Nerium – Guitars
Segale Cornuta – Drums
Krhura Abro – Bass
Kratom – Bass
Erba Del Diavolo – Vocals
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of said party. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
