Style: Doom metal, post-punk, black metal, avant-garde metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Electric Wizard, Messa, Eben and the Witch
Country: Italy
Release date: 13 Friday 2026

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The realm of heavy metal has been associated with the occult since its inception. A guy once got his fingertips chopped off, started a band that created a whole movement, and in the blink of an eye, all of the genre’s fans and associated acts became alleged devil-worshippers. Hell, even the more debaucherous glam bands of the time weren’t exempt from this judgement, despite their focus on the more ‘carnal’ pleasures in life. Now, decades later, and you can’t throw a beer can into a moshpit without hitting some member of a “Satanic” band; it’s engrained in the culture. This reviewer has a tendency to find it all a little hamfisted, especially when it’s meant to be ‘sincere’, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the odd act of the black craft. Maybe there’s already a band I like and they just happen to sing a few songs here and there about Lucifer and friends; perhaps that’s the band’s whole shtick and later we find out they believed it so hard they offed themselves in a circle of lit candles. Anything for fame, I suppose.

In any case, I’m happy to listen to the odd recitation of black rites, sincere or not, if it’s done in a spirited way; and Italians Ponte del Diavolo (The Devil’s Bridge) certainly scratch an itch there. Their name is taken from a bridge in Turin where most of the band is from, which is ascribed by legend to have been constructed in a single night by the Devil, whose hoofprint it is alleged can still be seen at one end of the bridge, near the local chapel. A fitting moniker for the group, their newest release De Venom Natura is a mesmerizing blend of post-punk, doom and black metal, and, as you can imagine, really leans hard on these dark, sinister themes.

After a brief synth ritual to open the album, Ponte del Diavolo’s black metal sensibilities set your speakers on fire with the furious freneticism typical of the style before you’ve even had a chance to dig out your incense holder. Blast-beats and tremolo-picking alight under the invocation sung by the vocalist, alias Erba del Diavolo, on “Every Tongue Has Its Thorns”. Transitioning into and out of fuzz-heavy doom riffs, the track ends with haunting theremin. If you haven’t pinned down their genre eccentricities by the end of this first piece, then surely the follow-ups “Lunga vita alla necrosi” (“Long live necrosis”—charming) and “Il veleno della Natura” (“Nature’s poison”) will elucidate their dark tendencies through an evident, decidedly post-punk influence, featuring heavily reverberant vocals and echoey guitars. You’ll find De Venom Natura wears its influences right on its sleeve, making no effort to obfuscate or obscurate where the band’s heads were while making this record, and indeed, Ponte manage to incorporate these persuasions without ever feeling derivative. 

The sonic landscape of De Venom is absolutely massive, owing to Ponte del Diavolo’s decision to round out their lineup with two bass players, pseudonyms Abro and Krato. In doing such—especially in their doom metal moments—the crackling low-end combines with the deliberate pounding of the lumbering percussion provided by Segale Cornuta (also a pseudonym) to prominently rumble and shake with enough force to stir the dust from the walls of their eponymous bridge. These gritty bass tones also do really well to complement Nerium’s (do I even have to say it?) abrasive, saturated guitar in its hypnotic ostinatos, and through the arcane sorcery of their engineer Danilo Bartocchio (not a pseudonym), the three components avoid becoming an indiscernible, muddy mess. The first part of De Venom flies right by you with tight songwriting, seamless genre-blending, and a mood and tone consistent in their spirit. That is, until halfway through the record, “Delta-9 (161)” stops you dead in your tracks like a bridge crumbling into a river. I admit this one may have taken some willpower not to skip entirely.

On “Delta-9 (161)”, the guitars drone on playing the same riff seemingly without end, unvarying. The low end rumbles along while a bass clarinet features in the background, playing something that wouldn’t feel amiss in the setting of some avant-garde silent film. All the while, Erba repeats the same meaningless lyric in spoken word, ostensibly meant to be evocative of some type of obscure spell or conjuration, with the lilting intonation of an announcement you might hear overhead in a metro. Eventually, the track picks up again with more of Ponte’s standard doom fare; the long drawn out vocals and rough-edged, chugging riffs above a pulsing beat making for a much more enjoyable second half. It begs the question: why couldn’t the whole track just start from that point? The first half of “Delta-9” is easily the weakest part of De Venom, and to suggest they need to cut it altogether would be a bit presumptuous—but certainly the listener gets the point well before the band decides it’s time for a switch-up. But I digress. Beyond this spike-strip, the rest of De Venom carries on at a more upbeat pace in the characteristic sound established in the first half, moving and shaking with a devilish groove.

De Venom Natura is a very strong sophomore release, and Ponte del Diavolo conjure their sorcerous themes with stony conviction. The album may occasionally get a little bogged up in its concepts, but strong performances—including from several guests across the Italian metal scene—certainly compensate for any minor missteps. A worthy listen for any lover of black cats, long walks in the cemetery after dark, and an alabaster complexion.

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Recommended tracks: Lunga vita alla necrosi, Il veleno della Natura, Spirit, Blood, Poison, Ferment!
You may also like: Euphrosyne, Celestielle, Splendidula
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Season of Mist

Ponte del Diavolo is:
– Erba del Diavolo (vocals)
– Abro – (bass)
– Krato – (bass)
– Nerium – (guitars)
– Segale Cornuta (drums)
With guests:
– Francesco Bucci (trombone, track 3)
– Andrea L’Abbate (synths, track 1, 5)
– Sergio Bertani (theremin, track 1; synths, track 4)
– Vittorio Sabelli (bass clarinet, track 5)
– Gionata Potenti / Omega – (vocals, acoustic guitar, track 6)