Acknowledging Schopenhauer‘s most famous characterization of the human experience as a desirous milling toward an endpoint of pain and applying this thought to the chaotic tumult of the modern day psyche Turin, Italy-based avant-garde/post-black metal quintet NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION seek to express traumatic suffering in cyclic descent, a cathartic whorl of existential dread per this fifth full-length album. Your senses betray you, the rational soul dements as the irrational body putrefies, congealing the entirety of death within one draining gape as ‘Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto‘ stares deeply within the spectacle of human suffering in churning motion. Or, in more direct terms this record finds the band leaning into the clangorous and confrontational ebb of dissonant black metal more than ever as their work studies chaotic forms to the point of wielding them in bleakest yet turns. Though these fellowes are yet embracing some of their mathcore infused temperament this time around their transition unto the fraught spectrum of post-black metal appears mostly complete within this process.

Noise Trail Immersion formed circa 2013 between folks who’d featured in thrash, death and mathcore groups either prior or ~around that same time. The original focus of this group was far more entrenched in the idea of eh, mathcore and grind at a time when blackened hardcore was popular, essentially sludgy “Converge-core” which could be found trading off with a dark ambient hum, spaced vignettes by their own design by way of their debut LP (‘Noise Trail Immersion‘, 2014). Though their densely repetitious beginnings weren’t necessarily my style there was some muscle memory for those ideas, having reviewed numerous mathcore records back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Their turning point toward black metal inspired work was arguably the band’s third full-length ‘Symbology of Shelter‘ (2018) in terms of infusing the sprawl and sprinkling dread of dissonant black metal tropes into their basal mathcore rhythmus. Again, it wasn’t an album for me then (or now) though I couldn’t avoid the curiosity created by the accolades lent to the band within my own circles, check it out if you’re big on Theophonos‘ first record. This new album is most similar to the ideas proposed via LP number three, though we shouldn’t overlook their fourth.

The band’s most recently full-length (‘Curia‘, 2021) was both a logical progression of fusion’d forms but also a very different beast as it’d represented a more complete leap made into extreme metal and a different angle taken on entirely as Noise Trail Immersion‘s use of ambiance now translated to something more cinematically charged. Tonally the album centered itself within post-metal inspired levels of performative landscaping, a distinct maturation of the band’s idea in the context of “modern” metal. Their crossing of mathcore and post-black metal/dissonant black metal guitar ideas was more vitally intertwined on that record yet all was glued together by a post-metallic directorial sense which’d buried the immediacy of their craft. The assumption was that this new album would directly reflect a completely melted-down, glommed and comingled sound one step beyond the last. In some sense this is true but the ratio has been disturbed and the ‘action’ of this new album presents more severe stakes within its overarching statement of chaotic disgust, taking a fully step away from the sleepiness of post-music.

The mood has fully changed here on ‘Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto‘ where the comfortable loft and soft-floated swings into danger prior now turn to clangor and distress outright as we fall into opener “Divampa I’Ignoto” per its rising cacophony of dissonant phrasing, strangely framed movements punctuated by Thantifaxath-esque spacing. The two guitarists here’ve made a point of showcasing their dual-voiced setup right away within the first half of this piece, searching together and apart through awkwardly struck harmony and ringing polyrhythmic device. This is as blunt and caustic as we’ve heard Noise Trail Immersion before and should immediately create an expectation of a colder, far more noxious realm within the mind. That said, the way they’ve gently lain the second half of the piece through its endpoint and unto standout piece “Spire di Sangue” is our first sign of the lessons of ‘Curia‘ informing the sometimes seamless, often circuitous flow of the full listen.

Though I’d stepped through this portal expecting something akin to Plebeian Grandstand on a good day the ‘The Long Defeat‘-feeling despair of the aforementioned “Spire di Sangue” was effectively unsettling as it’d unsheathed. Noise Trail Immersion have rightfully set the focus on the strained, bleak angst of this experience as this is the major transformation in bold highlight yet this piece is not sans dynamic, some of the best parts of ‘Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto‘ hang in the air in a way which recalls peak dissoblack/sludge fusion past, the heaping midsection of this song being the biggest gap they’ll lean into for now. Key single “Arde e Respira” flips the switch abruptly toward mania via its strangled-out concurrent black metallic guitar lines to start though the thread shifts, treading the line between purposeful movement and irrational nausea. The disorientation should’ve set in mid-song here, though I’m not sure why this fight against a lurching gut and an overstimulated mind is occurring. The context provided by the lyrics could be enlightening, though they are gloriously abstracted and just as mystifying when auto-translated.

Side A is not a full-on barrage but it is energetically thorough in its development of its major thread via the first four pieces. Dissoblack fans will begin to see the “disso-mathcore” side of the band glowing through their fingers as the album proceeds but nothing egregious enough to set off any sort of internalized sub-genre offender’s alarm. As we reach the middle portion of the full listen the most poignant point of relief offered within the tumult of ‘Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto‘ arrives via “Sogno A Sé Stante”, a post-metal performance piece where distantly retched vocals and jazz fusion tipped rhythms roll and boil in the distance. Set beneath a seemingly improvised cleaner guitar tone’s venture the jammed and unraveling flush of this song definitely had to grow on me during my rides through the full listen though I’d appreciate how it slashes the momentum of the first four songs down into a neatly piled ball of despairing havoc.

“Finizione” is probably the most obviate standout on the back half of the album, first for the surreal tone of the song during its more lucid, wandering sections but also for how much of the current Noise Trail Immersion ouevre it channels as something more feasibly ‘dissonant black metal’ in style. I’ve harped on this point a bit too much here and though this is a darker, more chaotically charged venture from the band it doesn’t necessarily land so drastically far from the realm of post-hardcore/mathcore and post-metal and this is felt as the mood of the album begins to veer over on Side B. The title track/closer (“Tutta La Morte in Un Solo Punto”) does well to shift the gears through the sum of the album’s parts as it flits between brittle dual-guitar dementia, slugged through grooves and more disparate post-metallic exchange but these two piece ultimately do well to hammer in mind the affect and temperament of this record.

Though it might be entertaining to hunt-and-peck through such a detailed longplayer I’m not sure that taking such a fine comb through ‘Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto‘ makes sense for the passerby, most of whom would do best to expose their minds to the immersive, intentionally disorienting clamor of Noise Trail Immersion‘s work first. Even still I’d found the heat of the summer combined with a unique ratio of seemingly nonsensical (but actually largely well directed) functions in this realm of dissonant blackened guitar music was maddening, eye-crossing harass fitting of its respective niche. What I was missing as a fan of this style, particularly the crossed swords of the guitar work, was a more clear sense of where we’d began versus the conclusion of the album as the final downward spiral doesn’t reflect profound change, only exhausts into a more fraught state. That in and of itself was satisfying in experience, after something like twenty listens I’d gleaned all that I could and that is a pretty wild stretch of focus for music that seems to endeavor to cull the attention span and resonate within despairing minds. A high recommendation.

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