SVNTH – Pink Noise Conception
(written by Islander)
In case you’ve forgotten or never knew, the Roman experimental metal band SVNTH pronounce their name “Seventh”, a connection to their former name Seventh Genocide. Their last album, 2020’s Spring in Blue, was an hour-long double-LP and part of a planned trilogy of colors based on emotions in different phases of human life. Almost five years later the plan evolves with a new album named Pink Noise Youth that will be released on April 18th by These Hands Melt.
SVNTH explain about this second part of the trilogy: “If the previous record Spring in Blue was about facing life’s struggles on a childhood perspective, the upcoming Pink Noise Youth will be based on exploring awareness as an adult in late youth, trying to give a voice to a generation emotionally unstable and chaotic as pink noise.” The album’s cover image by Tryfar is in line with that conception.
But not only has the subject matter moved into a different phase of life, the music has moved too. SVNTH have already established themselves as a band interested in bringing together a wide variety of musical colors — as varied as black and post-metal, shoegaze, art pop, and cinematic post-rock. The new album is equally transcendent of genre boundaries, combining elements of hardcore, metal, shoegaze, and post-rock with some new instrumental choices — incorporating an electric Indian sitar, classical and 12-string guitars, and (gasp!) clean singing. It is also the work of a lineup that has changed significantly since the last record.
As a hint of what the album brings, it’s recommended for fans of Deafheaven, Alcest, Brutus, Svalbard, and Agalloch. As a more concrete hint, today we premiere an official video for the third single from the album released so far, a song called “Narrow, Narrow.”
cover art for “Narrow, Narrow”
And really, any one song from the album considered in isolation truly is just a hint about the album as a whole, because the songs vary from each other in significant ways, and are sequenced on the album with the intention of having the listener move from one to the next as the band translate their conception into music.
SVNTH‘s penchant for stylistic amalgamation and intra-song change is revealed again in “Narrow, Narrow“. In its opening phase a lilting guitar gently and mysteriously rings, gilded in reverb, eventually paired with a gritty and growling bass chewing gravel way down below. It’s an entrancing but still somewhat menacing overture, but you can begin to feel the intensity and turmoil build as that phase evolves and the music in the upper reaches begins to swarm and sear and the drums start hammering.
And then, with the briefest pause, the band shift, and charge. As the rhythm section surges, the guitars still brilliantly ring but pulsate like hot blood in the veins, and the vocals are even more scorching. The bassist seizes attention here, but so do the vocals as they change to mid-ranging singing with a gloomy cast.
Yet the fiery race resumes, fierce but also stricken, and then accelerates even more. The guitars writhe and wail; the somber but soulful singing returns; the bass fervently throbs; the screams join in; keyboards ring as if yearning; and the music builds to a distressing finale.
Considered in the context of the new album’s conceptual theme, it channels (at least to this writer) senses of wistfulness and remembrance, but also of loss and grief, and a kind of rage over the unfairness of losing something or someone that can’t be recovered, and can’t be explained as anything that makes sense.
L to R – Jacopo Fagiolo – Guitars, Alessandro Canzoneri – Drums, Rodolfo Ciuffo – Bass, Vocals, Sitar, Valerio Primo – Samples, Percussion, Alessandro De Falco – Guitars
Photo Credit – Arianna Savo
But we should also share SVNTH‘s sentiments about the song:
“As much as the song ‘Wings of the Ark‘ from the previous album Spring in Blue was based on the experience of a loss during childhood, this song does the same but in the late youth phase of life. The final refrain ‘We will never come back again, but we’ll always be here’ is intended to be considered a sort of anthem that reflects on the shortness of our life as humans compared to the eternity of our memory that remained in the people we left.”
CREDITS: All music and lyrics for the new album were written by Rodolfo Ciuffo, and performed by Rodolfo Ciuffo, Alessandro De Falco, Valerio Primo, and Alessandro Canzoneri, with guitar solos on “Elephant”, “Exhale” and “Nairobi Lullaby” written by Alessandro De Falco. Alessandro also recorded, mixed, and produced the album. It was mastered by Angel Marcloid at Angel Hair Studio.
These Hands Melt will release Pink Noise Youth on vinyl, CD, and digital formats, and it’s available for pre-order and pre-save now. Below the links you’ll also find streams of those first two singles from the album, “Cinnamon Moon” and “Perfume“.
PRE-ORDER/PRE-SAVE:
https://lnk.to/SVNTH
SVNTH:
https://linktr.ee/svnthband
https://www.facebook.com/svnthband
https://www.instagram.com/svnth_band/
https://svnth.bandcamp.com/