Published: April 29, 2022 

Notturno is a new project from Multi Instrumentalist Vittorio Sabelli, from Dawn Of A Dark Age and Suici.De.Pression. Vittorio is joined in this project by Vocalist Kjiel, who usually provides the vocal chords for Eyeless Sight, and guest drummer Sven. Obsessions is Notturno’s first release. Notturno’s style is broadly black metal, and specifically a mix of atmospheric and depressive black metal, that is melodic, tuneful and tends to stay on the softer side of black metal, only occasionally pushing the extremity button. 

The album is split into 3 long songs, named Fear, Darkness and Falling. Fear opens with clean guitar and keyboards, the feel is sad and melancholy, and it is soft and minimal in style. Whispered vocals are added, making this feel delicate and fragile. The track then takes a turn for the heavy and harsh, with mid-paced depressive black metal and anguished, harsh vocals. The song then goes back to the soft and melancholy style that the track opened with for a couple of minutes before the heavy and harsh returns, and this time the extreme section keeps on getting more aggressive, with a blast beat, and a very hostile snare battering the audience. The track drops back into the clean and soft section, which takes the song to its conclusion. 

Darkness is the shortest of the 3 tracks. The song opens with very slow and heavy depressive black metal in a similar vein to None, a lush keyboard line is added building the melancholy. The arrangement builds and very aggressive vocals are added, the song then drops into a Blast Beat and a tremolo picked melody lead is added and just fills the song with melody and grief. There is a short, soft and clean guitar part, before the depressive black metal builds back up for a deeply unhappy ending. Final track Falling again opens with soft, clean guitar and whispered vocals, there is a classical guitar solo that is just lovely before a very slow and heavy section with fervent vocals, that builds to melancholy depressive black metal section that is a little reminiscent of Nordicwinter, that has a huge tremolo picked melody over it. 

A blast beat is added, but that tremolo picked melody is still there. The track then has a break, and everything drops to soft keyboard swells and clean guitar, which then slowly adds more extremity as it builds back up to be driving and dramatic rhythmically. This fairly staccato part then morphs into some very pleasing atmospheric black metal that flows brilliantly. The track then stays mainly on the atmospheric/depressive black metal style with some very good melody leads and vocals that are deeply anguished and full of emotion. The song and the album comes to an end with soft, clean guitars and keyboards. Obsessions is a great first album. 

It’s quite simple when compared to a lot of black metal, but in many ways that is a strength of this album, it’s straightforward and direct, it’s trying to put across a feeling of sadness and melancholy, and does so in a very effective way. It has a sense of being a first statement of intent, this is what Notturno is, it seems to say. On subsequent releases I’ll expect more complexity, but for a first album this works very well. The album is very effective in presenting a very particular form of sadness and anguish and it does it so well; the combination of riffs and achingly melancholic and sorrowful vocals have a very powerful effect on the listener. A great first album, I’m already excited for the follow up. Highly recommended.