I might have been the only one, but I was quite taken by the unconventional guitar playing of one Mr. Daniele Vergine on Occulta Veritas’ Irreducible Fear of the Sublime, which naturally led me to check out Vergine’s main project of Noise Trail Immersion.  I was incredibly impressed with the albums Curia and Symbology of Shelter, in particular the way that Vergine’s black metal plays out in a hardcore context.  When I saw we had the promo for Tutta la Morte in un Solo Punto I knew I had to put my fingertips where my mouth is and step up for my guy.

The unconventional way that Vergine uses every possible note of an extended range guitar really lights up my brain in a way that not many other players do, and that is front and center to the sound of Noise Trail Immersion as much as Occulta Veritas.  Complex, atonal and jarringly off-kilter riffs and melodies drive the sound of the project, but Noise Trail Immersion is much more grounded in naked aggression as opposed to post-black explorations, and on Tutta la Morte, Noise Trail Immersion doubles down on that aspect of their music.  “The idea was to express a deep suffering, even violent and furious, but still an integral part of a cathartic vision, which sees the human experience at its center,” explains Vergine.  The ethos of the album is to hearken back to 2018’s Curia and go for a more straight-ahead and grounded dynamic, prioritizing shorter compositions that are overall punchier, to-the-point, and a finer middle ground between chaos and memorability.  Noise Trail Immersion have been a band for over a decade, so the aim here is to really distill down what makes them unique and, as much as I don’t like using this as a descriptor, mature their sound to match their tenure.  Lyrically, the band face-turns slightly on the nihilism and despair that has typified their lyrics for a breath of catharsis and purging of negative emotions instead of dwelling in them.  Tutta la Morte is an album that goes for the gut as opposed to the head, so a lot of the deeper philosophical musings that, by my own admission, go right over my head, are pushed to the back burner in favor of more direct expression.

Obviously, the ground floor of each song on Tutta la Morte is the fantastically weird and wacky riffing of Vergine and fellow guitarist Nebil Jabnoun.  Intricate would be one way to describe their style, but really there isn’t a proper description that I can think of that accurately prepares you for just how unconventional the roots of these songs are.  You’d expect music that is heavy to live in the lower register of what a guitar can do, but these riffs and melodies jump all over the entire string and fretboard span, almost without rhyme or reason, and most of them feature a lot of clashing, dissonant interplay between Jabnoun and Vergine.  For the unprepared listener, this will seem pretty intense, overwhelming and even nonsensical at times, but a trained ear can pick out exactly the intent behind the too-close-for-comfort harmonies and jarring shifts in tone.  The atmosphere of Tutta la Morte is claustrophobic, made all the more intense by vocalist Fabio Rapetti’s piercing shrieks and guttural bellows jumping around in timbre as much as the guitars do.  The brevity of the songs, therefore, is much appreciated, as compositions like these that go any longer than four or five minutes border on unlistenable, but each song, true to their vision, has a distinct climax that it builds to and moves through digestible (although not easily) themes and motifs.  The tight, sleek production also does Tutta la Morte a lot of favors; you have to have a tight ear to catch everything going on at once, but there’s no facet of these songs that is indiscernible amidst the chaos.  Perhaps it retains more of the cerebral nature of the project than Noise Trail Immersion intended, but a few things are for certain: this is memorable and it is heavy as all getout, both musically and emotionally.

Perhaps Tutta la Morte in un Solo Punto isn’t going to be an album for everyone.  For me, I’m continually impressed by the ingenuity and talent of Vergine and his bandmates across projects, so another excuse for me to celebrate that is always a good thing.  Symbology of Shelter is my favorite of Noise Trail Immersion’s backlog, and the fact that this album borrows a lot more from that means it gets high marks in my book.  If you want an album that is both punchy and thought provoking, this is definitely one to check out.  Now about that next Occulta Veritas album…

— Ian

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Tutta la Morte in un Solo Punto is available now on I, Voidhanger Records.  For more information on Noise Trail Immersion, visit their Facebook page.