Nel Buio – Nel Buio EP
Nel Buio – Nel Buio EP
Avantgarde Music
Release Date: 21/06/24
Running Time: 22:12
Review by Dark Juan
9/10
I write these words as I mentally prepare myself for an evening out. Yes, your favourite misanthrope and sometimes Metal hack, is breaking with convention and actually deigning to venture out of Crow Cottage for a night in Halifax with Mrs Dark Juan, her daughter and some close friends. Yes, I do have them. Editor-in-Extremis Simon ‘None More’ Black will doubtless be reeling at this news, as he is fond of a sarcasm or two about Dark Juan’s lack of desire to share oxygen with a bunch of other shaved apes with anxiety. In other news, Dark Juan has managed to convince another victim… I mean a fine young man to join the Ever Metal family, dysfunctional as it is, so he will probably quit in short order as well! Plus, it means we now have representation on the continent, as David is Spanish and therefore well placed to cover our European cousins.
This five-track offering which is currently rotating upon the Platter of Splatter™ is from some of our European friends – namely Nel Buio from Italy. I don’t know what it is about Italy, as it is a fucking gorgeous country, but it produces some of the greatest Gothic and Black Metal bands Europe has – Lacuna Coil, Ponte Del Diavolo, Theatres Des Vampires and many others, including the irreplaceable and mich missed (by Dark Juan, anyway) Ephel Duath. One can only assume that Italy has a dark, seething underbelly of hatred and despair. And I don’t mean Giorgia Meloni. Dark Juan would like to get at her underbelly despite her disgraceful politics…
Nel Buio is a three-piece band formed from members of Blasphemer and is an altogether heavier proposition than your usual Blackwave / Darkwave / Synthwave band, being as they have taken Emperor and Dimmu Borgir’s Symphonic Black Metal and welded it with the cinematics of the likes of Electronic wizards Occams Laser and Epoch Of Chirality and given us music which can be best described as peine forte a dure for the ears. A dense, tense sound that is heavier than the sun and scarier than what the old lady at number 27 made you do for the money for that new guitar, you dirty little pervert.
Nel Buio (being Italian for ‘In The Dark’) takes a lot of inspiration for the Electronic part of their sound from classic 80’s Darkwave – so if you are a fan of this sort of stuff, you’ll hear nods to the likes of Beautiful Pea Green Boat and Danse Society and Clan of Xymox among the bludgeoning. Now, it has to be said that Black Metal is not the most subtle of genres and this is also true of Nel Buio. When they are powering through their speedy Black Metal, the guitars and drums provide the driving force for the song, but the electronics are not there just to do a Dikmik and whoosh and swirl around in the background for effect. No, here they are as much a lead instrument as the guitars, just as feral and just as uncontrolled in their rage and savagery.
Opening track ‘Lei è’ kicks the EP into motion with a slowly expanding soundscape, cinematic Synthwave slowly growing in volume and power until the drums kick in and then the song is transformed from the sound of a predator creeping through a blasted cityscape after human prey into a stunning explosion of symphonic Black Metal as it transitions into ‘Sola’, all speed and chromatic patterns, broken up with heavy as fuck breaks to wreck your neck to. It is devastatingly atmospheric, the sheer brutality of BM turning the thought of the relaxed grooves of Synthwave into something feral and twisted and just as bloodthirsty as Black Metal. Think of it as yet another weapon carried by an armoured and gene-spliced horror as it tracks hardwired retinal scanners operating in an infra-red range around the rubble of a destroyed city in search of the few remaining humans which it most destroy in order to obtain purity…
The title track is rather more extreme than ‘Sola’ and begins at ultra-megaspeed and doesn’t really slow down, but it allows the synths to take the lead in parts and break up the BM madness with the stabbing and swirling of dangerous, arcing electronics, at the very limit of resistors and fusing, the stink of ozone overwhelming the senses yet overdriven flesh is forced to continue way past previous levels of exhaustion through gross amounts of stimulants sparking exhausted nervous systems to keep on functioning as incipient madness grows and grows in a black, coal-like nugget in the centre of your wildly overstimulated brain. Vocals grunt and howl and roar and scream as various personalities try to take hold of your overtaxed cortex in a vain attempt to enforce some control over it to protect what is left of your sanity.
‘In Silenzio’ again starts off with pure Black Metal madness, but this time the Synthwave aspect of the sound is more to the forefront of the music and the guitar apes the lead lines of the synths rather than the other way round. Nevertheless, this song is the purest Black Metal song on the EP. Until two minutes in and then the music takes the most extreme hard left turn Dark Juan has ever heard and it turns into a gloriously overblown piece of epic electronica before somehow dragging itself back to earthquake inducing Black Metal. And then, just when you think Nel Buio couldn’t go any faster… Terminal velocity attained, until it slows down a little bit, probably because the members of the band were risking losing limbs.
The guitar riff on the intro to ‘Mi Avvelena’ sounds almost like a Coheed and Cambria riff before the song morphs into something that Satyricon might well have released, with added mournful keyboard lines on the chorus.
In fact, the whole record is feral, barely contained violence and bloodstained fangs launching themselves out of the shadows at your throat is the immediate feel Dark Juan has when listening to Nel Buio and this is indeed a Very Good Thing.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Il sistema brevettato di classificazione degli schizzi di sangue di Dark Juan, per i miei amici italiani. Per Satana e tutte le sue orde, sto amando la vostra scena metal in questo momento. Voi ragazzi e ragazze lo state facendo impazzire!) has no hesitation in awarding 9/10 for a tremendously brutal and fun five tracks from Nel Buio.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Lei è
02. Sola
03. Nel Buio.
04. In Silenzio…
05. Mi Avvelena
LINE-UP:
Clod ‘The Ripper’ De Rosa – Vocals
Neil Grotti – Guitars
Francesco Vellacifer – Drums
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 both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
