At his third long-distance work, Noctu probably reaches his highest level of expressiveness with a work in which incommunicability is taken to its extreme consequences; this is done without using all the available power of extreme metal but, if anything, by reiterating in a very appropriate and well delineated manner the limpid piano notes that totally dominate a work that runs for about three quarters of an hour, along four carrier tracks plus two intros. The funeral doom of the Italian musician has a strong connotation in its ambient and depressive components, this latter without using the rhythmic impact of black metal but resorting to a torn and desperate voice that succeeds in describing the sense of bewilderment, anguish and psychic discomfort that is intended to be exhibited through the notes of the piano; the album develops in an almost minimalist manner and, in some ways, initially tends to repel the listener only to slowly creep through the folds of the psyche, creating a sort of empathy towards a suffering expressed in an unmediated manner. This is the strength of a work such as Norma Evangelium Tenebris, which is in no way comparable to the funeral doom that we usually listen to, the one characterised by powerful, cadenced riffs and mournful melodies surmounted by a deep growl: here, everything moves through a path of suffering outlined by the ivory keys and the heartrending screams of someone who sees no light at the end of the tunnel, but who, on the contrary, stands probably since ever in this tunnel with no chance to escape.
2022 – Dusktone
Mournful Sounds 
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