The second instalment in a chromatic trilogy that began with ‘Spring In Blue’, ‘Pink Noise Youth’ continues the unique path forged by SVNTH, an Italian band at the crossroads of blackgaze, post-rock and shoegaze. Always balancing electric tension and instrumental delicacy, the band refines its identity here by exploring the blurred zone between fading adolescence and the onset of adulthood. This album is more direct than its predecessor, which exceeded an hour in length, but it is still as emotionally charged. Beneath its short format – eight tracks in 37 minutes – lies a dense soundscape that can be listened to like leafing through a diary on the edge of silence and screams.

From “Inhale” onwards, the tone is set: electric sitar, suspended textures, the impression of being in a dark room where contours are drawn by feedback and breaths. We enter a form of noise meditation, a dive into the heart of “pink noise” – that signal between order and chaos, the perfect metaphor for a youth losing its bearings. Each track seems to respond to the next in a circular structure, until “Exhale”, a moment of temporary acoustic calm (12-string guitar and sitar) before the explosive “Winter Blues” and the strange, final lullaby that is “Nairobi Lullaby”. In between, SVNTH weaves a non-linear narrative, where shoegaze flirts with post-black and post-rock with unsettling freedom.

“Cinnamon Moon” is undoubtedly one of the most accessible tracks on the album. The guitars are clearer, almost luminous, even if a melancholic veil persists. On “Perfume”, pure emotion takes over: raw vocals, minimalist instrumentation, and a sense of unvarnished intimacy reminiscent of Mono's post-rock. In contrast, “Elephant” and “Winter Blues” venture into more abrasive, darker territory, where tensions are never fully resolved. Deafheaven and the recent work of Ihsahn come to mind for this ability to bring together violence and lyricism, but with a more marked restraint here. The drums, precise without being demonstrative, become the backbone of a chaos that is always restrained, as if SVNTH refused to sink completely, preferring to remain on the edge of the abyss.

But it is perhaps on “Nairobi Lullaby” that the album finds its balance. The track evokes an exiled lullaby, far from any folklore, carried by a recurring motif, the return of the sitar and an almost unreal sweetness.

This is where the band shows all its mastery: in its ability to create contrast without rupture, to blend roughness and delicacy without ever bringing them into direct opposition. A gentle but relentless insurrection. Pink Noise Youth is not a spectacular record. It prefers suggestion to assertion, tension to explosion.

It speaks of a youth that doesn't seek to scream but to understand, to tame the inner noise. It's an album that has to be earned, that unfolds slowly and ends up sinking deep. A subtle work, both fragile and courageous, confirming that SVNTH isn't just another band in the blackgaze landscape.