https://youtu.be/6NBQWCA7078
Band info
Band: Splēne
EP: ‘Desire Path‘
Released: January 15th, 2025
Genre: post-black, shoegaze, avant-garde BM
Location: Italy
Review
Salutations, greetings or even hails (as some folks still use to our sight), dear listeners.
We’ve got something particularly fresh today coming from the city of Novara, in Italy.
Under the name SPLĒNE, they define themselves as “fire Dark Minds lost in the Ethereal”, and so, their debut work featured today, ‘Desire Path’, in the length frame of an EP with a quite high quality production and detail leaping far from anything demo-cut, deploys in all its strength following the tag “Ethereal Black Metal”, and not really much more regarding any artist given description.
Maybe giving no disclosure of what is exactly Ethereal in this artistic work was the purpose, giving it a bit more of an extra halo of mystery, but we’d say it needs no adornments whatsoever.
This brief work (complimentary short experience; recommended for replay), comprised of 5 songs in a total span of around 20 minutes, starts with no introduction straight to a blasting instrumental unfolding only opening for some seconds to the vocalist, which through a torn screaming carries the catharsis that the whole EP orbit around; a fast, frenetic blend of post-blackgaze with what’s for this humble one writing this review but a clear pinch of screamo influence, breaking through the classic features of black metal more clearly and taking their own word as they tag themselves avant-garde black metal as well. When the songs drop to slower bits, both senses and the sound able to take a breath in a more post-rock tone, only to return to their tone making it impossible to fall under any regular or monotonous sequence. A truly moving and solid work. even though maybe some of the meanings in the lyrical part are partly lost in translation to English (as some wording feels a bit loose or oddly put, but for due context it’s understandable still), ‘Desire Path’ is a very well done set of emotional expressionism, and every metaphor used flies like a dagger to the chest.
[…]”
“So bear with us today as we open again the mind and the hear for another dose of introspective reflection by the hand of SPLĒNE.”
Other links and platforms:
BC: https://splene.bandcamp.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/spleneethereal
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@splene