NEWDRESS - ADE (A Dance Eternal)

Newdress are old acquaintances of OndaRock: flicking back through our pages, you'll find the favourable reviews written in 2012 and 2017 by Marco Bercella, who was quite taken with both “Ties of Light” and “Falso negativo”. “ADE (A Dance Eternal)” marks the project's return to recording after seven years of silence, a comeback that brings no major changes to the stylistic mix of the trio from Brescia, who confirm themselves among Italy's foremost authorities in the goth-new-wave scene, which since the second half of the 2010s has become an integral part of the vast post-post-punk movement, where Newdress occupy one of the slots we can safely call “darkwave”.

The eight songs on “ADE” have English titles, but the lyrics are written in Italian, a strongly defining trait of Newdress's work: by choosing to express themselves in their own language, they adopt the same distinctive feature shared by much of the new non-English-speaking post-punk.
The sound is majestic and imposing, even as it conjures an atmosphere that feels outwardly cold and austere. The current line-up consists of Stefano Marzoli (vocals, synth), Jordan Vianello (drums) and Andrea Zagna (bass/guitars), who bring dynamism to the final result, bringing in a couple of welcome guests: “Can't Control” features an appearance by Miss Lucifer (Anna Graves), vocals and synth in Soft Scent, while Finnish artist Suzi Sabotage enriches the vocal lines of “Kore”. The tracklist also includes “Sacrifice”, a cover of a song originally recorded by London After Midnight. 

The album also has an intriguing concept: it's inspired by the myth of the Rape of Persephone. The cover image, depicting two bare feet dancing in the dark, provides the key to its interpretation. “ADE” reinterprets the myth in its most essential form: Persephone, abducted while picking flowers, eats six pomegranate seeds, food reserved for the dead, a gesture that binds her irrevocably to the underworld, condemning her to spend six months forever in shadow and six months in light. The concept explores three thematic cores, Deprivation, Loss and Rebirth: first the plunge into darkness as an inner condition, a winter of the soul; then the awareness of absence, of the void left by the retreating light, the processing of loss; and finally the return as a choice of rebirth. The album's title, “A Dance Eternal”, thus aims to represent dance as a metaphor for a perpetual movement between shadow and light, between ending and new beginning.

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17/10/2026