There’s something a bit magical when an album surprises you — and not because it is experimental or full of twelve minute epics — but because it feels totally familiar and newfangled at the same time. That is what happened when I hit play on Pink Noise Youth, the fourth album from Italian blackgaze shapeshifters Svnth, but my first incursion into the band.
Right off the bat, Pink Noise Youth does not behave the way you’d expect a blackgaze album to behave. The sitar in the intro alone had me tilting my head wondering whether I had mistakenly reached for the yoga playlist. There is this hazy, Eastern vibe to ease one in, before it all takes a hard turn into post rock crescendos, and a string-laced ride through a hazy, genre defying landscape that, despite all else, sounds like summer, a word we don’t generally associate with blast beats and reverb-soaked screaming.
Svnth have managed to take the emotional weight of blackgaze and lighten it, infusing it with something more open, breezy, and hopeful. This comes from a rich blend of textures: fretless bass, electric sitar, layered acoustic percussion, keys, and samples. Add 12-string and classical guitars, and you get an airiness to the way the music flows and how it moves, flows, carries, and lifts. What is really striking is how compact and intentional PNY feels. It is neither self-indulgent nor sprawling. Each track delivers its own little cinematic journey, but there is a tightness to the overall experience. So many albums in this space lean into density, but Svnth take the path less travelled and offer something that feels rather placed. Guitars don’t smother, they shimmer; drums punch but don’t dominate; and vocals are just jagged enough to keep the atmosphere grounded.
There is a quiet confidence in the way Svnth blend sounds. One moment I am getting Katatonia melancholy, the next I find myself in Explosions in the Sky territory, yet PNY does not feel like genre tourism. Svnth don’t seem interested in impressing the listeners with references, instead focusing on building something that feels good to listen to, which generally seems like a more difficult thing to do. But PNY isn’t totally seamless — the transition from “Elephant” to “Narrow Narrow” feels like missing a step on the stairs. While of course, this is not album breaking, it is noticeable, and avoidable.
I believe that more than anything, Pink Noise Youth made me smile, and gave me the rare feeling of discovering something new: post-y blackgaze that didn’t crush me with despair, but lifted me with light. It was a cold stream on a hot day, fresh air after rain — a band who know how to scream and gleam at the same time. 10/10 would shout along in a flower field.
