Ponte del Diavolo – De Venom Natura
Release Date: 13th February 2026
Label: Season of Mist
Bandcamp
Genre: Blackened Post-Punk
FFO: Messa, Chelsea Wolfe, Esben and the Witch, Dead Can Dance, Dool, Darkthrone, The Devil’s Blood, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Review By: Malte Brigge
Aside from the Olympics, something is going on in Italy. They keep producing occultish metal and metal-adjacent bands formed from gatherings of post-punks, all creating unique sounds nothing like each other and nothing like anyone else out there. Turin’s Ponte del Diavolo unleashed dark magic in 2024 with Fire Blades from the Tomb, a bass-heavy stigmata that was comfortably in my year-end top fifty and continues to grow in estimation because it contains mysteries I still don’t understand. Does follow-up De Venom Natura bring answers or more infernal secrets?
Picking up right where Fire Blades from the Tomb left off in sound, tone and structure, there’s a little more emphasis on electro and wave elements; synths, theremin and programming (provided by Andrea l’Abbata and Sergio Bertani) establish eerie, found-footage backdrops recalling such disparate artisans as the Bad Seeds, Muse and Chelsea Wolfe. Ponte del Diavolo’s twin-bass foundation of founder Khrura Abro and newcomer Kratom keeps the album not only grounded but feeling like it was recorded in a cathedral crypt devoted to blood sacrifice and demonic summoning. (Daniel Battochio’s production captures the band live and remarkably clear, though the separation of instruments to different speakers put enough strain on my ears I had to stop using earbuds when listening.) It sounds like one bass uses a pick for strong, vibrant thrumming that explores its space with attention-gripping rhythms while the other plays fingerstyle, maintaining a central, subsurface trance. Drummer Segal Cornuta’s almost experimental-jazz approach is more relevant to the thematic character of the songs than the beat. He builds hypnotic repetition and hits syncopated breaks but doesn’t shy from smashing into punk grooves when needed.
Ponte del Diavolo’s singular approach to melody is set up by Nerium’s simple yet diverse guitar work and led by Erba del Diavolo’s irreproachable voice. Nerium avoids pyrotechnics, opting for an aggressive, hypnotically industrial approach in the vein of Blixa-era Bad Seeds and stage-ritual Killing Joke with flares of second-wave Norwegian black metal. His sepia, occult-rock tone heightens his snarling style, whether with smooth tremolo (Lunga vita alla necrosi, In the Flat Field) or choppy chord attacks (Spirit, Blood, Poison, Ferment!, Silence Walk with Me), riding on top of the bass work and elevating Erba del Diavolo’s vocal score. Her contralto is performed like the soundtrack to a religious horror movie, attacking with chant-like invocations (Lunga vita alla necrosi), hypnotizing with announcement-like repetition (Delta-9) or crooning with passionate intensity (Spirit, Blood, Poison, Ferment!). She’s expanded her range, tracking terrifying demonic gang vocals (Every Tongue Has its Thorn) and encroaching on near-death growls and shrieks. Lachrymose melodies overlay musical panic attacks (aided on Silence Walk with Me by Gionata Potenti/Omega), tight registers create urgency (In the Flat Field) and her voice slides from incantation to a mellifluousness (Il veleno della Natura) that wouldn’t be out of place in Messa or Witchrot.
The songs on De Venom Natura are expansive and simple in structure, allowing for plenty of inward movement. Francesco Bucci lends his trombone with aplomb to Spirit, Blood, Poison, Ferment! and Vittorio Sabelli’s bass clarinet is the saving grace of Delta-9. This mid-album stoner track adapts Acid Mammoth-like meandering that upends the dark, unsettling atmosphere of the rest of the album. Four minutes of repeating the chemical properties of THC wears thin by the second listen, though the slow, devilish riff will burn deep into your brain’s dream layers. It isn’t a bad song, but at nearly nine minutes is too long for how few ideas it has, and breaks the spell De Venom Natura had successfully been casting. Delta-9’s uneven weight unfortunately overshadows Omega’s languid guest tenor on Silence Walk with Me and weakens the melodic climax of closer In the Flat Field. By presenting a centerpiece so repetitive, they highlight an almost self-referential sameness that is one of their strengths but can also mask moments of marvelous musicianship.
Ponte del Diavolo sound like no one else, and the best aspects of the album live up to its title. De Venom Natura builds consistent tension that never brings the satisfaction of release, leaving the listener uneasy, as if an addictive poison were slithering just beneath the skin. The lurking presence of nearby terror is never revealed and so never removed. Despite the mid-album 420 break disrupting the spell, I never feel the need to turn away from this chthonic exorcism. In fact, I’m not sure I could if I wanted to; De Venom Natura’s dripping fangs sink deep and do not willingly let go.
(3.5 / 5)
