Anyone who has ever found themselves drawn toward the fringes of the punk, hardcore, and goth communities to satiate their aggressions and depressions while lusting for a straight-up pop exorcism to shake it off will discover that Nuovo Testamento are your people. Before they were known to manifest dances in the dark, the trio of vocalist Chelsey Crowley, drummer Giacomo Zatti, and synthesist Andrea Mantione came together from various corners of those scenes. Zatti played in the California hardcore punk band TØRSÖ while Mantione was part of Italian gothic death rockers Horror Vacui. In turn, they understand how to build bridges between polarities as well as realize how it’s the overlooked corners of our culture where you’ll often find more interesting commentaries on mainstream art.

Having already outlined palpable cold wave and ’80s synth-pop textures with 100% accuracy on their 2021 debut LP, New Earth, and 2023’s sophomore follow-up, Love Lines, Nuovo Testamento’s latest extended play, Trouble, reaches beyond the obvious, establishing them as a progressive force in the contemporary alternative dance-pop landscape without dissolving their retro influences. More specifically, it’s a heart-beating love letter to freestyle and house-pop with introspective social commentary that moved bodies and minds in the late ’80s and early ’90s a la Cynthia, the Cover Girls, Robin S, and Real McCoy.

Maybe these artists didn’t reach the same lasting level of success as the Madonnas or Whitney Houstons of the world, yet they remain cult classics for those who came from more marginalized corners of the pop landscape. Nuovo Testamento remember their lasting yet undercelebrated influence they had in moving the needle forward. Between Crowley’s passion plays of unfiltered emotions while Zatti and Mantione finesse radiance around then, their translation of it into modern dance music coexists as romantically blissed and a tiny bit dystopian. Because it’s a heavy world out there. Whether you take that in a literal sense or a musical sense, it doesn’t mean you can’t soldier on by setting yourself free with lighter indulgences. This is pop music that acknowledge the dark and heartbreak of it all in pure euphoric form.

Highlights: “Picture Perfect”, “Dream On”, “2 Hearts”

Nuovo Testamento’s Trouble is available now on Discoteca Italia.

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