Bianca - Bianca [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]

Angry Metal Guy

Italian semi-super group Bianca, comprised of members from Patristic and Hideous Divinity, stole my attention when their debut self-titled LP dropped at the tail end of October. Stricken by its beauty and flattened by its sheer heft, Bianca impressed me so much that for a good two weeks, it was all I wanted to talk about. Yet, after the honeymoon period had passed me by, I remained as enamored with Bianca as I was at the start.

Despite their brutal death metal and blackened dissodeath pedigree, Bianca is an ethereal affair borne of the abyss. While the obvious riff supremacy of Hideous Divinity and the crushing density of Patristic are amply represented in Bianca’s lush compositions, a deep pool of Draconian doom and Silhouetted melody soaks the work in void-black ink. With her siren song and piercing banshee wails, vocalist β captivates. Her Lilas Dupont-meets-Cristina Scabbia delivery leaves all of my defenses inert so that her shattering screams can melt my face and my heart with equal heat. Flanking her on either side, Sathrath’s (Patristic) multifaceted drumming and ES’s (Hideous Divinity, Patristic) brutal guitar assaults perform chameleonic feats, morphing between beastly blackened wraiths and muscular death metal monsters with shocking ease. All the while, bassist Ͷ brings a rumbling undercurrent to complement Bianca’s heaviest fare, and a gentle support to its lighter detours.

Bianca by Bianca

As if to prepare me for—or to lull me into a false sense of security from—the oncoming onslaught, Bianca opens with a risky 5 minutes of delicate, airy atmosphere (“The Dawn” plus the first 2 minutes of “Abysmal”). It pays off big dividends, as the brutal drop of crushing riffs and blistering speed that follows impacts my skull like a thousand anvils. However, Bianca is not a relentless creature motivated by blind rage. Just as violently as it destroyed my body with its first salvo, that softer side glides through the distortion to heal my broken bones and shattered soul. This push-and-pull dynamic personifies clever tracks like “Somniloquies.” It burrows into the brain with an ascendant lead melody that passes from guitar to vocal, culminating in a spine-tingling vocal refrain that rises too high for me to tag along. This, in turn, ensures my summary destruction as album highlight “Nachthexe” deals a devastating bout of Massen-like riff blitzes, Hulder-esque tremolo layering, and Silhouette sultriness built to brawl and beguile.

This dichotomy between beauty and beast famously attracts wide audiences, but Bianca’s novel take on this winning formula puts it on an elevated plane. Every instrument and composition embodies this split and celebrates the spectrum of tones, textures, and transitions that such a divide unlocks. In an unexpected development, that spectrum extends to the percussion as well, with “Resonance” featuring a delicate blast beat that softens the composition without sapping it of energy. So effective is this strategy that even the ritualistic closer, “To the Twilight,” highly evocative of Frayle’s brand of occultist doom, surprises despite its placement at the end of a record full of delightful twists and dark turns.

Even in a banner year for women in metal, Bianca slots beautifully amongst the top new acts to hit the scene. A massive debut, propped by the talent of seasoned musicians and new blood alike, Bianca is a triumph of format, of style, and of substance. Yet it feels like just the beginning of something greater, and I can’t wait to hear what that might be!

Tracks to Check Out: “Abysmal,” “Somniloquies,” “Nachthexe,” “Resonance”

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