From their PR firm, “With a various background of musical influences and artistic inspirations, SVNTH (written all caps and pronounced "Seventh") from Rome, Italy has been shaping a unique equilibrium of sounds through the years moving across a huge variety of directions on the palette of contemporary alternative music to create a distinctive soundtrack for inner emotions, life scenarios, and existentialist questioning, expanding the energy of black and post-metal over the mellow and contemplative boundaries of shoegaze, art pop, and cinematic post-rock. This new full-length demonstrates SVNTH's continued evolution, deliberately transcending genre boundaries by combining elements of hardcore, metal, shoegaze, and post-rock with unexpected instrumental choices. The album promises to take listeners on a cohesive journey through its carefully crafted track sequence, maintaining the band's tradition of creating conceptually unified works.”

The album has eight songs, and the first is a mood-setter called “Inhale.” There are light guitar tones, a constant hum in the background, and tension hangs like morning fog in the air. The riff that follows is dark, somber, and crushing. “Cinnamon Moon” hears the rousing roar of harsh vocals over a bed of firm guitars, with sober melodies. You can hear the torture in the vocals, but at times it is tempered with harmony. It hangs in a balance so precariously, if you reach out to touch it, you will set it off its course. “Perfume” is sweeter, due to the straightforward melody line. It is catchy, somewhat sad, and it makes my heart ache. The guitars still lay down business with dark riffs, and meaty bass notes, and the harsh vocals augment the cleans so very well.

“Elephant” brings a visual cue to this crushingly heavy song. But even within all of its weight, there are delicate moments that can bring the listener to his knees. The sheer gravity of this song needs to be underscored. It transitions however to a bright sound right before your eyes, like a flower opening during spring. “Narrow, Narrow” has a tighter grip on your senses. Thick bass notes combine with clean guitars in an opening that reminds me of a cold winter. It picks up into a thicker sound reminiscent of Black Metal to me, and the band reminds you that they have power in their pocket. It is tempered so well with clean vocal harmonies. “Exhale” hears some of the more exploratory side of the band, with the folky twang of the south. It transitions to much harder and more serious guitar riffs that tower over the acoustical ones, and then to a pretty melody line.

“Winter Blues” is another firecracker of energy from the first note to the final. It stays dense until just after the half-way mark, where the veil of darkness is lifted with clean vocals. “Nairobi Lullaby” closes the album, and it’s the exact closer that I would have chosen as well. Gone are your fears, your worries, and your anger, and they are replaced by a quiet complacence. For me, it is a reminder to enjoy my time down here, to slow down, and allow myself some happiness every now and again. It has smooth edges, and gentle tones, and just makes me feel good.

This is not music that settles into one feeling; it is an album that lives in the tension between them, where grief fuels rebellion, where pain and resilience are inseparable, and where every song feels like a battle between destruction and redemption. In the end, it does not leave the listener broken, but neither does it offer false comfort. It does not promise that everything will be okay, but it does promise that the struggle is worth something. It is an album that carries both the weight of sorrow and the fire of defiance, the burden of grief and the light of something that refuses to die.