Lucynine – "Melena"
A Descent into Dark Post-Rock Waters
When a record bears the name of a medical condition (melèna is the discharge of black, tarry blood), you already know you're not dealing with an "ordinary" release here. With his second full-length album, "Melena", Turin-based multi-instrumentalist Lucynine (aka Sergio Bertani) delivers a work that bleeds despair, claustrophobia and raw intensity into thirty-two minutes of post-black metal, post-hardcore and avant-garde experimentation. To be released on October 3rd 2025, via Talheim Records, the album is as much a cry of personal anguish as it is a reflection of the world around us.
The opener "Uomo in mare" ("Man Overboard") sets the tone immediately with a suffocating sense of isolation. Bertani screams:
"Annaspo in un nero mare di mestizia / E nessuno mi porge la mano"
("I flounder in a black sea of sadness / And no one reaches out a hand").
It is the image of a drowning man, a metaphor painfully apt for our times, where environmental collapse, war and disinformation leave many feeling helpless, stranded in their own oceans of grief.
The follow-up, "Narciso non muore", is shorter but no less devastating. Its ritualistic chants of "OSANNA, PREGA!" morph into condemnation:
"Morta è la virtù / schiava del proprio ego"
("Virtue is dead, enslaved to its own ego").
Here, Lucynine is not merely screaming into the void; he is holding up a mirror to a narcissistic society that glorifies appearances while the world burns.
Dense walls of distortion
Unlike his debut, "Amor Venenat" (2020), a sprawling, guest-filled concept album, "Melena" is starkly solitary. Bertani composed, recorded, mixed and mastered everything himself, locking himself away in a Turin studio. The result is deliberately suffocating. Vocals are buried beneath dense walls of distortion, production choices are compressed to the point of asphyxiation, and any sense of space is obliterated. This isn't an accident—it's the very point.
The title track, "Melena", encapsulates this with crushing dissonance:
"Chiodi negli occhi, spine tra i denti / Muori ogni giorno, ma vivi per sempre"
("Nails in the eyes, thorns between the teeth / You die every day, but live forever").
This is torment without catharsis, a refusal of the "epic lift" that many post-black metal records offer. Instead, Lucynine drags you deeper into the mire.
Beyond the Threshold
If there is a turning point, it comes with "Oltre la soglia" ("Beyond the Threshold"), where themes of collapse give way to defiance: "Temi l'uomo che non ha più nulla da perdere" ("Fear the man who has nothing left to lose"). This resonates not only as a personal cry of anguish but also as a social warning: when whole generations feel stripped of hope—by climate breakdown, by economic precarity, by political lies—there is no predicting the storms they may unleash.
A Monument of Despair
The centrepiece is undoubtedly "Opera al nero", a 15-minute leviathan that pushes the album's aesthetic to its limit. Here Bertani becomes both monarch and mourner of a dead kingdom:
"Impugno lo scettro / Sovrano di un regno cadavere"
("I wield the sceptre / Sovereign of a cadaverous kingdom").
The track unfolds like a litany of collapse: silence devours sound, memories turn to dust, and the cosmos itself crashes down in violent imagery. It is exhausting, bleak, and yet impossible to look away from.
The thing with the magpie
What sets "Melena" apart from countless post-black metal releases is its refusal to romanticise despair. There are no pastoral interludes, no melodic reprieves, no shimmering guitar walls that promise transcendence. Instead, Lucynine offers us music that mirrors the claustrophobic horror of living in an era of permanent crisis. If bands like Alcest or Deafheaven provide escapism, Lucynine denies it, chaining the listener to the very thing they might want to flee from.
The imagery of the magpie on the cover is telling: once a symbol of joy and freedom, here it is dead, a stark emblem of mourning. In a world where ecosystems are collapsing, species vanishing, and human connections growing ever more fragile, this symbolism cuts painfully close.
Final Thoughts
"Melena" is not a record you "enjoy" in any traditional sense. It is a work you endure, a piece that demands surrender to its suffocating atmosphere. It is an act of witness—personal, yes, but also political in its refusal to decorate despair with false beauty.
This is not the place for you if you're seeking comfort or a record to play in the background. But if you're willing to confront the abyss with open eyes, "Melena" stands as one of the most unflinching statements in the post-black and avant-garde metal landscape of recent years. It does not heal, it does not soothe, but it refuses to lie. In the era of filters and AI uniformity, that truth is perhaps its greatest gift.
