Italian band BRAILLE fuse crushing riffs and intense vocals in a powerful post-hardcore meets melodic hardcore sound that they describe as “sad, reflective and tormented.”
The Rome band started out in 2021, led by vocalist Alessandro ‘Axel’ Pellegrini and guitarist Matteo Rufolo, who’d played in another project together years ago that Axel intriguingly labels as “pretty embarrassing, honestly.” They recruited childhood friends, drummer Claudio Cacciatori and guitarist Lorenzo Ferrante, before completing the lineup with bassist Daniele Chiodi.
On the approach they’ve taken since, Axel told us: “BRAILLE’s sound is a mix of very emotional metalcore and melodic hardcore, the two genres that influenced us the most while writing Amigdala and what’s coming next.
“We love experimenting and trying to come up with something that surprises us first. Another important characteristic of our music is that the lyrics are written partly in English and partly in Italian, our mother tongue.”
As alluded to, our latest taste of this is Amigdala, which was released earlier this month and is the first single from the band’s upcoming EP Under the Warmest Sun, I Felt the Coldest Wind. Amigdala starts out with stabbing high-pitched guitars that give way to dual screamed and clean vocals over driving drums. The pace slows before heavy dual screamed vocals take over, giving way to the cleans and screams before another smash of intense screams.
The pace slows again as a cry of “can’t you hear my SOS” ushers in heavy rolling drums as the track takes a new level of darkness, giving way to crushing guitars under guttural screams. A cool darting riff and relentless drums lead into a piercing little solo, which continues as intense screams bring the track to a powerful conclusion.
On the track, Axel said: “The reaction has been good, especially to the music video, but we’re the kind of people who always aim higher. We’re not that easy to satisfy. Anyone who hasn’t heard the track yet should listen knowing they’re hearing a very complicated page of someone’s life turned into music. It means a lot to us.”
That follows on from a steady stream of singles and a couple of EPs released over the last two years. Most recently, the brutal Got Bullets is a personal favourite, led by heavy guitars and intense vocals, which flow into a chorus of powerful vocals over atmospheric instrumentals. It delves into all sorts of darkness with vicious guttural vocals, before a crushing breakdown sets up a powerful ending. There’s a more melodic edge to tracks like Aritmia, the excellent Paranoia, the very melodic hardcore Bloodsea, which features delicious high-pitched guitars that flow into an atmospheric outro, and their superb debut single Masquerade. While track like the intense Déjá Vu and And Thence… (We Came Forth to See Again the Darkness) really pack a punch.
The BRAILLE sound is influenced by a wide range of artists and genres, including the likes of Casey, More Than Life, Bring Me The Horizon and a lot of Italian music.
And on what inspires them to write music, Axel explained: “Our main topics are extremely personal: depression, abandonment, and other emotional struggles. Not to feel sorry for ourselves, but to make anyone who feels or has ever felt that way feel a little less alone. Emotion and community are at the core of our creativity.”
BRAILLE will release their next single Green Big Eyes next month, which will be the final single from the Under the Warmest Sun, I Felt the Coldest Wind EP. After the EP’s released, they’ll be playing gigs around Italy and elsewhere in Europe.
And Axel added: “It’s a project we’ve put so much time, money, and energy into, and we care about it in an indescribable way. We’re an emerging band trying with everything we have to do something with what we love most in the world. It’s not easy, and even a small gesture like a follow on Instagram, a message, or sharing our stuff makes us genuinely happy.”
You can follow BRAILLE on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.
Listen to BRAILLE and more new bands on our Spotify playlists GigRadar Core, GigRadar Post-Hardcore and GigRadar Metal
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