Ponte del Diavolo - Dark rituals between post-punk and metal

The term Ponte del Diavolo (Devil's Bridge), often coinciding with the so-called "humpback bridges," is applied to numerous structures found in almost every part of the world. Their architecture, so complex and asymmetrical as to suggest the impossibility of standing upright, has fed local folklore from Costa Rica to Algeria, via Italy.

If there's one Italian city most closely tied to the occult, and to the Devil specifically, it's surely Turin: just think of the statue of Lucifer dominating Piazza Statuto, or classics of Italian thriller cinema like "Profondo rosso" by Dario Argento. From Turin's underground scene, in 2020, emerged a band that originally blends dark strains of rock: from the most funereal post-punk to doom and black metal, holding it all together with esoteric lyrics doubly tied to a submerged world of Luciferian cults and mysterious practices. The name Ponte del Diavolo refers to the bridge in Lanzo, in the Turin area: a medieval single-arch stone structure, 65 metres long and 16 metres high, suspended over the gorge of the Stura stream.

This is a band born from the union of members of Feralia, Inchiuvatu, Abjura and Askesis, inhabiting a borderland between gothic, metal and punk that has few parallels in Italy. Our own Messa, perhaps the most fitting domestic comparison, lean more towards dark-tinged metal, whereas Ponte del Diavolo retain the unstable energy and shadowy restlessness of punk's core spirit. The band features an unusual five-piece line-up that adds a second bass to guitar and drums, alongside the evocative, theatrical and versatile voice of Erba del Diavolo, stage name of Elena Camusso: it's easy to detect in her (among other things) echoes of the legendary Siouxsie Sioux.

"Io vivo solo dove Dio non c'è": the three EPs

The first part of the band's career saw the release of three EPs between 2020 and 2022, later collected in Tre – The Ep Collection in 2024. Mystery Of Mystery (2020) consists of three tracks, including an introductory one featuring a spoken-word piece by Gustavo Rol, the controversial Turin-born psychic, mentalist and medium:

⟦Q1⟧

It's an effective way of introducing the listener to the band's aesthetic, which on the following "I" takes the form of thunderous mid-paced doom-metal, with sudden black-metal accelerations. The more elaborate "The Wickedest Woman In The World," earth-shaking and lurching, is the first track in the discography truly worth flagging: almost eight minutes that, beneath distorted guitar, build a dark-ritual atmosphere, with violent double-kick explosions over which the female voice intones liturgical, mysterious chants; after six minutes it's as if a breach opens onto the world of shadows, into which the listener is sucked, amid hallucinatory miasmas.

The occult ritual has only just begun, as shown by the second EP, Sancta Menstruis (2022), far bolder and more evocative. After settling into the right mood with "13," the band reveals itself to be more detached from the doom dynamics of the first EP, more inclined to explore gothic atmospheres on "The Unborn," without however giving up the thick darkness of the trio formed by two basses and electric guitar. The evolution is more creative, labyrinthine in certain passages, and evocative in the drums' tribal and then martial allusions. When the track sinks once again into a doom-metal whirlpool, it feels like the fulfilment of a climax rather than the deafening frontal assault heard on Mystery Of Mystery. Here emerge echoes of some of the blackest rock, on a par with Christian Death, and of a certain gothic, dark post-punk à la Sisters Of Mercy and Bauhaus.

Another decisive turning point comes with the first song sung in Italian, “Un bacio a mezzanotte”: a different beast from the Quartetto Cetra song of the same name, though evoked here with a taste for the macabre not unlike certain Bachi da Pietra.

Ave Scintilla, also from 2022, closes out this trio of early-career EPs, opening with a dark, psychedelic intro before moving into two new tracks. “Scintilla” sums up the band's growth, now comfortable in a gloomy post-punk sound dominated by a superb Erba Del Diavolo, theatrical and magnetic, streaked with doom-metal roar and vicious black-metal surges. The peak is the obsessive repetition of the line “Io vivo solo dove Dio non c’è”, a perfect summation of their pitch-black aesthetic.

The opening of “AveE” leans more squarely into doom-metal, with slow electric-guitar arpeggios over a march driven by thunderous bass, but within two minutes the chanting vocal takes over a melodic black-metal that occasionally turns ferocious. Erba Del Diavolo proves an exceptionally skilled singer in steering the track, intricate and full of shifts across the punk-doom-black continuum, making it an ideal entry point for listeners less versed in the genre.

“Tu sei già sterco, lui concimerà”: Fire Blades From The Tomb

About a year and a half passed before the release of the debut album, Fire Blades From The Tomb, in February 2024, backed by a long promotional tour lasting roughly two years with numerous dates across Europe.

A blast-beat paired with buzzsaw guitars opens the opening track “Demone” in classic black-metal style, then the declaimed vocal and a catacomb-like slowdown steer the ritual toward a deafening intensity; further shifts in tempo accompany the invocation toward a hypnotic finale, with Erba Del Diavolo's voice posing as a dark priestess.

The following “Covenant” is mid-tempo metal, solid and tense: the electric guitar slashes through the night, while the vocal's gasps hint at imminent danger; the final minutes turn into an obsessive dance, closed off by the ghostly hiss of a theremin. “Red As The Sex Of She Who Lives In Death” unveils a sensual side, laying out a pitch-black blues with metal surges and a chilling childlike vocalise, a satanic nursery rhyme.

The more psychedelic turn in the first section of “La razza” leads into an unstable black-metal, tamed by another magnetic vocal performance, post-metal flashes and menacing lines. The more aggressive and straightforward “Nocturnal Veil”, with its ghostly clarinet, together with the anxious invocation of “Zero”, with Erba Del Diavolo in feverish ecstasy, bring this esoteric picture to its ideal close.

The album, a dark web of various strands of the darkest rock, closes with a restless cover of “The Weeping Song” by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds.

“Sono il Diavolo”: De Venom Natura

The second album arrives almost exactly two years after its predecessor. De Venom Natura is released by a band that has already built a certain recognizability in Europe, at least among fans of dark, gothic and esoteric sounds.

Opened by a fragment of dungeon synth, “Every Tongue Has Its Thorns” immediately brings out the black-metal artillery, then proceeds through accelerations, thickenings and thinnings that merge post-punk, black-metal, doom-metal and deafening screams with Erba Del Diavolo's magnificent vocals, able to switch between roars, seductive stretches and mysterious vocalises.

The martial spoken-word delivery of “Lunga vita alla necrosi,” reeled off like a CCCP anthem while the guitar glints venomously, reveals black-metal undercurrents, abyssal doom depths and yet another proof of the singer's remarkable ability to adapt to different styles and registers.

While drawing on similar ingredients, “Spirit, Blood, Poison, Ferment!” takes on a dark-cabaret shade when it adds a lively trumpet melody. The fascinating fusion of sixties echoes in the vocals with gothic-rock and thriller atmospheres on “Il veleno della natura” underlines how effectively the band can broaden its language, weaving a spectral melody into a black-metal assault.

“Delta-9 (161)”, whose title nods to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), lingers in a psychedelic stoner-doom with something of Electric Wizard about it: after more than five minutes, it's once again the formidable vocal performance that lifts the track toward more creative territory, eventually leading to a thunderous coda, a hair's breadth from death-metal. “Silence Walk With Me” opens with a similar intensity, with something of certain Leprous in the interplay between guitars and drums, before launching into black-metal accelerations topped by a melodic vocal. This album too closes with a cover, “In The Flat Field” by Bauhaus.

Aided by a crisper production that lets the nuances of the arrangements shine through, De Venom Natura expands and refines the ideas of Fire Blades From The Tomb. The tracks are less prone to sprawling or repeating themselves as they unfold, with the notable exception of the nine minutes of “Delta-9 (161)”. The result is a compelling listen that draws heavily on the past but pulls in very different directions: thriller and horror soundtracks, various incarnations of metal (stoner, doom, black), dark gothic post-punk, even hints of progressive. It's the crowning achievement of a personal, timeless vision: a postmodern reinterpretation of the satanic, esoteric and dark imagery so dear to the city of Turin, one of the world's capitals of esotericism.

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