Album Review: NIMH – Nine Years of Decadence
Artist: NIMH
Title: Nine Years of Decadence
Label: Fluttering Dragon Records
Release date: February 5th, 2026
Country: Italy
Format reviewed: High-quality digital recording
Album Review: NIMH – Nine Years of Decadence via Fluttering Dragon Records by Pegah
“Nine Years of Decadence” is the latest album by Italian musician Giuseppe Verticchio under his project NIMH, released via Fluttering Dragon Records. The album compiles fourteen tracks composed, performed, and recorded between 2017 and 2025. The album title, which refers to this period of time, points to a perceived decline in culture, humanity, and morality — a transformation the world has been undergoing for nearly a decade. While this decline has long been in motion, it seems to have accelerated in recent years, giving the impression of a world abandoned, left to drift without guiding principles. The gate depicted on the cover art, a photo by Francesco Ponzano, suggesting a long-forgotten and deserted place, mirrors this sentiment. Locked and heavy with buried memories, it stands as a threshold between the known and the unknown, between past and present, or perhaps an uncertain future.
“Ending Mirage”, the opening track, with its atmospheric yet rough soundscape, embodies lives constructed upon dreams and fragile hopes. Perhaps the truth has now been revealed, bringing this illusion to an end. Perhaps our eyes are finally open, allowing us to choose our own direction rather than follow what has long dictated us.” The Last Moments of Agony” unfolds within a different sonic landscape — more cinematic, more immersive. It feels like existing inside pain itself, where perception is blurred and reality becomes indistinct. The fragmented, almost unintelligible voices reinforce this disorientation, as if thoughts are dissolving before they can fully form. Gradually, the sound fades, as though, moments later, everything has vanished into silence.
As Giuseppe Verticchio expresses his reflections on the present time through his music, I felt compelled to ask him directly what specifically led to the creation of “N.T.E (Not This Europe)”: “You ask me specifically, ‘What is disappointing about Europe nowadays?’ and I could answer very succinctly, ‘Almost everything.” Let me start by saying that I feel very “European”, that I have nothing against Europe. But as a simple ‘everyday’ observer of a European country, Italy, which unfortunately shares many situations with many other European countries, I want to condemn what appears to be a ‘suicidal’ political vocation from almost every point of view. Economic, financial, health, social, labor policies, devastating domestic policies, absurd squandering of public money, senseless constraints, and even crazier international policies. Every day, we witness the indifference and progressive “de facto” erasure of citizens’ fundamental rights.”
The soundscape in “Tolerance Is Subservience” grows increasingly harsh and abrasive, as if embodying the urgency to resist and refuse submission to so-called powers. It feels like a call to protest — a refusal to remain silent or be passively directed. The following three tracks share a similar conceptual and sonic atmosphere. Begins with being silent and then gradually surrendering to the new concept of victory. Yet this choice ultimately leads to becoming “Resigned To The Fall”, and the decadence of humanity. To avoid falling into this trap, one must remain “Solid Not Fluid”, resistant to dissolution in a world that constantly pressures us to bend. “This Land Is My Land (Song For Natives)”, another piece that is deeply connected to the recent conditions, its atmosphere feels heavy and shadowed as Giuseppe Verticchio himself elaborates: “In Europe, we are witnessing the daily destruction and systematic erasure of everything that is local culture, tradition, customs, habits. Much of this is the direct consequence of uncontrolled illegal immigration (one of the various forms of ‘suicide’ I mentioned), which has made daily life and survival difficult, sometimes impossible, not only for ‘natives’, who fight their own personal ‘war’ every day in the streets, in the workplace, in hospitals, but also for that large proportion of regular immigrants of good will.”
“Tears Underwater”, one of my favorite tracks on the album, carries the weight of unresolved grief and the burden of our inner conflicts. It evokes a moment most of us have lived through — those times when we hide our tears, when we don’t want anyone to see our vulnerability. In such moments, we feel “Exclusive, Not Inclusive”, isolated within our own emotional boundaries. With its sorrowful yet delicate melody, the track deeply resonates with how I feel these days: a mixture of agony, loneliness, and fear of the future — a sensation of being a stranger on this planet. Next track “Quiet Song for White European Soldiers” according to Giuseppe Verticchio is dedicated to the millions of European citizens who fight their “daily war.”
The album concludes with “I’m So Tired (The Last Song)”, a track that carries a noticeably different atmosphere from the others. Unlike the heavier, more oppressive soundscapes that precede it, this piece conveys a sense of movement and not remaining still. Yet this dynamism stands in subtle contrast to its title, which encapsulates the exhaustion that follows witnessing and enduring the chaos of the world. “I would like to point out that although personal thoughts and situations obviously inspire the titles of my tracks, my intention was actually to express more “general” concepts that everyone can interpret and consider based on their own experience and life situation, since some themes do not have a single historical and geographical reference, but can be widely extended to historically and geographically different situations and contexts”, Giuseppe Verticchio mentioned. 9/10
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9/10 Epic Storm
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