Here’s a new review of DEMONIST coming from DEVOURED DEATH Zine (Australia)!
Support underground #deathmetal or dissolve!
#frenchmetal
« Prisonnier d'un âge de confusion
Où les ordinateurs règnent en maîtres »
Satan Jokers - Age De Confusion (1983... ça ne nous rajeunit pas, hein 😬 😁)
This week's #GrindayFriday is one I've been meaning to feature for a while- I suppose I'd call it goregrind, some death touches. This is VOMI NOIR from Toulouse, France. All their stuff is great- even their earlier stuff- but this LP from 2023, '
L'Innommable Remugle et la Mélopée Cavernuleuse des Râles Agoniques', is a real treat. Some wild drums, dynamics, and weird stuff like I'm always looking for in grind. These guys have it. Great guitar tone, too.
#metal #grind #goregrind #deathgrind #grindcore #France #FrenchBands #FrenchMetal #FrenchGrind #VomiNoir #Toulouse @vanessawynn @wendigo @HailsandAles
It's finally out ! The latest album by Fetters on which i shout on 3 songs.
I'm so proud and glad to have taken part in this project once again. Some of my best lyrics too !
Chack it out now.
Mütterlein – Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound Review
By Dear Hollow
I’ve always unfairly ranked Rorcal above Overmars. What can I say? I got into Heliogabalus and Born Again around the same time, enamored by both single epic song interpretations of hardcore vigor, pained dissonance, and pitch-black sludge. Still, Heliogabalus took the cake when it came to bottom-scraping hellish riffs, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Themes differ, as Rorcal’s elegant storytelling added further majesty to their colossal attack, while Overmars’ scrappy commentary on injustice and religious trauma owed a more anti-establishment aura. Rorcal remains one of my favorite acts, while Overmars broke up in 2011. Out of sight, out of mind, but it wasn’t until now that Overmars has come back to haunt me in the form of Mütterlein.
Mütterlein is a project of Overmars vocalist/bassist Marion Leclercq,1 but the sound in comparison to Overmars is a spiritual successor only. The sludge is present in the density in much the same way Author & Punisher offers, in walls of electronic darkness, synthesized percussion, and trip-hop beats, while climactic moments of mammoth post-metal chugs crash through like a freight train. Always rooted in more ominous atmospheres recalling the resounding organ of its cover, third full-length Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound offers an electronic trip to the shadows that feels grandiose and explosive where it ought to, but far too stripped down in others.
Mütterlein revolves its movements around a synthesized beat, resembling either a darkwave pulse that feels a tad like Perturbator or a thunderously precise snare that feels like an electronic interpretation of Isis, and its movements flow around and atop it. It’s a simple but effective structure, as largely these percussion movements carry across an entire song, while Leclercq’s atmospheric songwriting allows more metallic movements to mesh in a slurry with the synth-driven elements that combine into a haunting overture that recalls some of horror’s more cinematic moments. From a synth-centric version of Amenra in its diminished post-metal rhythms, leads, and call-and-response riffage (“Wounded Grace”) to the pulsing wave of density interwoven with angelic choirs atop trip-hop beats (“Concrete Black,” “Ivory Claws”), and guest appearances of Church of Ra’s Treha Sektori in sprawling dark ambient interludes (“Memorial One,” “Memorial Two”), Mütterlein has a formula that is effectively simple and simply crushing when it needs to be, although its more minimalist pieces drag on for far too long (“Anarcha,” “Division of Pain”).
Mütterlein places its claustrophobic sound design front and center, and like any good post-metal album, vocals are just another instrument in Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound. It’s a bit of a shame, because Leclercq gives her most passionate and disconcerting vocal performance, relying on a drawling Audrey Sylvain (ex-Amesoeurs) post-punk groan (“Ivory Claws,” “Memorial Two”) and a rabid Kristin Michael Hayter (formerly Lingua Ignota) sermonic howl (“Memorial One,” “Division of Pain”). Too much of the music becomes monotonous and repetitive without enough of her vocals to keep up the vigor and energy, its pulse quickly dwindling to a flatline (“Division of Pain”), making the tracks that feature a switch-up at its midpoint highlights (“Wounded Grace,” “Ivory Claws”). The sound palette is nice when her vocals guide the horror, giving a climactic three-prong attack of vocals, electronic pulses, and overlaying leads, but when one of those crucial elements is removed, Mütterlein quickly loses its bite.
I miss Overmars, but Mütterlein offers a brand new sound that’s both densely crushing and darkly atmospheric, even if the sound is imperfect. Recalling the likes of Author & Punisher in swaths of punishing electronics, Amenra in its haunting melodic approach, and Lingua Ignota in the fury behind the mic, there’s a lot to like about Amidst the Flames. However, there’s a thin line between intrigue and monotony, and when the track goes too long or Leclercq removes her vocals, the result becomes painfully dull in its more stark passages. Feeling a tad long at a normally reasonable forty minutes, Mütterlein offers a mixed bag with triumphant highs and dull lows in Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Websites: mutterlein.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/mutterlein
Releases Worldwide: May 9th, 2025
#25 #2025 #AmbientMetal #Amenra #Amesoeurs #AmidstTheFlames #AuthorPunisher #DebemurMortiProductions #Electronic #ElectronicaMetal #FrenchMetal #IndustrialMetal #Isis #LinguaIgnota #MayOurOrgansResound #May25 #Mütterlein #Overmars #Perturbator #PostMetal #ReverendKristinMichaelHayter #Review #Reviews #Rorcal #TrehaSektori
About a year ago i asked Eddy, formerly guitarist for BWWI, to record with me a new version of Sheep, an old song that we had.
So it's a faster, louder, grinder version of maybe our first pure grindcore song.
You can buy this ep for not much online, the songs are also on the Démodez limited cd-r
Notre nouvelle vidéo live du titre "Forteresse" enregistrée le 28 février 2025 dans Le Local de Strasbourg est dispo dès maintenant sur YouTube ! À écouter et partager sans modération ! 🤘
https://youtu.be/hKIZ_0NqcFo?si=S0lkq7XTmKLOhDU8
#prungk #metal #frenchmetal #metalfrancais #punk #punkhardcore #rock #concert #strasbourg #music
I totally missed the 1st anniversary of our first mini-album Panem x Circences, it's on bandcamp for a few euros and i still have some cds left, not that much.
Recording ndw stuff now, gonna be nice
#grindcore #deathmetal #frenchmetal
https://bornwithwormsinside.bandcamp.com/album/panem-x-circences
By El Cuervo
There are many heavy metal bands in the world. Intense genre stratification led to lots of musical hopefuls attempting to carve their own path. Despite their best efforts, it’s incredibly rare for a band to do something that hasn’t been done before. Citing a journey through the “raw energy of black metal,” “profound melancholy of doom,” and “organic vitality of folk,” France’s Nydvind are making another such attempt with their fourth album entitled Telluria. This unusual medley and a 20-year history ensured that I didn’t instinctively reject the one sheet’s notion that the group may be pioneering; there aren’t many bands operating in this genre that split 3 sounds. Is Telluria as distinctive as its genre promises?
The Nydvind style isn’t a part of the same scene as the likes of Agalloch, but they capture the earthen feel that such bands exalt. “Dance of the Ages” uses flitting, clean guitar lines and occasional chants to conjure a folksy effect, tied into acoustic guitar passages designed to evoke delicacy. This contrasts with the record’s opening heavy passages that blend trilling blackened guitars with deathly, guttural growls. Likewise, “Heart of the Woods II” opens robustly, with a doomy lick delivered via a shredding tone. The remainder of Telluria sometimes winds and sometimes stomps its way through passages that principally progress through a fusion of black, doom, and death metal. Despite its variety, the core of the music has a feel that won’t be totally unfamiliar to fans of Paradise Lost, but observed through a decidedly blacker lens.
When you first start with Telluria, the multitude of influences in the pot and frequent musical shifts make things interesting. But it’s definitely more ‘interesting’ than ‘exciting.’ Although there’s a lot to listen to when paying close attention, my overall emotional response is an unfazed one. The majority of the album is merely okay. This is undoubtedly compounded by the music switching between varied sounds in an uneventful way. “Heart of the Woods II” proceeds through its doomy opening and a blackened second passage then back again, but each transition simply ceases the prior music and commences the next. There are very few moments of sophistication or drama to signal change to the listener. The over-arching fusion of doom / black / death/folk influences sounds harmonious on first listen, but it’s not nearly as stimulating as it should be.
I find my initial interest thoroughly waned by Telluria’s back half. Ultimately, the inability to generate a visceral emotional response (even a negative one) consigns it to the sizeable heap of forgettable music I’ll not bother returning to. The shuffling, directionless song-writing contributes to my dispirited response. I find the doomy mid-pace passages the dullest of Nydvind’s sounds, and these passages sometimes stretch out over minutes at a time. The songs average 8 minutes, and only one runs for fewer than 7, with another exceeding 10. Only “Into the Pantheon of Absynthia” reaches a climax that’s reasonably satisfying, as it escalates with a crescendo that gets heavier over time. The remainder of the songs don’t justify their duration.
The only complete exception to the commentary I’ve provided above is the title track. Pretty much all the best passages on Telluria are locked within these 9 minutes. From the crunchy, blackened verse with piercing shrieked vocals to the layered leads that harmonize then counter-point, it did what no other track could by demanding my attention. It then proceeded to hold it by featuring the album’s best solo and one of its heaviest passages after its mid-point. And just before that heaviness becomes tiring, the ensuing quietness offers a welcome contrast. “Telluria” still fails to stitch together its varied passages in a subtle or engaging way, but separately they’re best throughout.
Despite the more exceptional moments that form the strongest Nydvind material, the vast majority of Telluria leaves me cold. Beyond those moments, it’s difficult for me to highlight any particular riff or melody as standouts; much bleed together into a grey sludge, even with the diverse influences. There’s the potential for a thought-provoking synthesis of styles here. But while the quintessential 2.0 commits the sin of disappointing its listener, Telluria commits the sin of leaving very little mark at all.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: v2 MP3
Label: Malpermesita Records
Website: facebook.com/nydvind
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025
#20 #2025 #Agalloch #BlackMetal #DoomMetal #FolkMetal #FrenchMetal #MalpermesitaRecords #Mar25 #Nydvind #ParadiseLost #Review #Reviews #Telluria
Paths to Deliverance – Ten Review
By Thus Spoke
Metal has long taken inspiration from the realms of horror, mysticism, and the occult. Paths to Deliverance adopt ideas from all three. Debut Ten, structured roughly around the bardo—the liminal experience leading from the point of death through to reincarnation—also borrows imagery and storytelling from “Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Graham Masterton, and Stephen King, as well as […] Dante.” You would be justified in assuming this is a solo project, given its eclectic and lengthy blurb, but this is only partially true as progenitor A.S.A has recruited artists to fill every position other than his own vocal and bass duties.1 It is, of course, black metal—if the concept, the fact that it’s a solo project, and artwork weren’t a clue. Yet here again, Paths to Deliverance claim difference and particular fearfulness. Not trve or raw, but truly frightening, and deeply personal, if the promo material is to be believed.
Ten is a lengthy tale and like any story, has its ups and downs. However, these fluctuations cannot be attributed only to the concept that supposedly drives the music. Surrounding the peaks of ardour and vivacious, vitriolic riffdom is an odd nebulousness that drains the force from otherwise solid songs. This sense, which only builds over the runtime, contributes to the album’s lack of cohesive flow, and how it may yet contain greatness. Running through Ten is a powerful current of feeling, expressed primarily through a mournful, melodic black metal that sounds a lot like Gaerea in everything from the extended mini-catharses of rushing drums and urgent tremolos, to the very guitar tones and the way the howls and riffs echo brightly in the background (“Resonances,” “Alone in the Dark,” “Delirium,” “The Storm”). Right alongside this is a more belligerent blackened death, less concerned with atmosphere than with evoking the spirit of spiteful independence that eschews the vulnerability of that other, more melancholic style (“Solitude,” “The Calm Before the Storm”). And then there’s the vague integration of a raucous group-vocal attitude (“Delirium,” “Here Lies…”) and classical guitar (“Reveries,” “The Storm”). These approaches are not inherently contradictory, and allow Paths to Deliverance to demonstrate worthy aptitude for stirring and exhilarating black(end) metal. As components of Ten, however their integration can lead to a tonally mixed bag.
Paths to Deliverance tease with moments of greatness, but squander their potential through messy execution and incoherent compositional choices. The trend begins instantly, as the mournful drama built so perfectly in opener “Ab Initio,” is hastily discarded in the jump to upbeat “Resonances,” vindicating anyone who’s ever argued the pointlessness of intros; but it’s worse, because “Ab Initio” is over three minutes long. Across Ten, we must witness Paths to Deliverance dampen the power of combined chilling atmospheres and thrilling riffs by burying them in what feels like filler that meanders (“Solitude,” “Alone in the Dark”) or pushing them to the final passage of a song, or indeed the album (“The Storm,” “Redemption”). There is an overabundance of directionless, restless addition—a new riff, a tempo change, a key change (“The Calm Before the Storm”)2, layered clean and growled vocals (“Solitude”), a vaguely pop-punk chorus (“Here Lies…”), horns (“Delirium”), chorals (“Redemption”). And as soon as that beautiful refrain develops, and those awesome drum fills propel the song into a blaze, and it seems like Ten might really be brilliant, the magic disappears as Paths to Deliverance show they’re more interested in shoving a different idea in your face (“Resonances,” “”Delirium”), or pulling the tremolos away in favour of about two minutes of completely disconnected acoustic plucking (“Reveries”).
It thus becomes difficult for Ten to be anything other than an awkwardly scattershot and unfocused listening experience. Each element is well-crafted, and there are passages of powerful and powerfully sinister meloblack strewn across Ten. The issue is that they are strewn, and not carefully placed. Why, for instance is “The Storm,” very possibly the best song, relegated almost to the very end, when the listener has long since lost patience for Paths to Deliverance’s self-indulgent tonal indecision. The drumming is consistently tight and excellently performed, but it can’t make up for what lacks in the songs it provides a skeleton for. Whilst things are manageable in the album’s early stages, the interminability of less interesting sections, and the restlessness with which Paths to Deliverance add and subtract ingredients only gets worse over its span.
Ten falls short of the promises that Paths to Deliverance made of it. Not because it is incompetent, but because it lacks focus. It’s only with hindsight that the red flag of the long and varied list of inspirations becomes obvious. The runtime and these inconsistency issues point to an inability to edit, which the blurb reflects. This doesn’t negate those numerous snippets that could, in isolation, appear on a great black metal album. It only makes them harder to appreciate without separation from the rest.
Rating: Mixed
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kb/s mp3
Label: Malpermesita Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025
#25 #2025 #BlackMetal #FrenchMetal #Gaerea #MalpermesitaRecords #Mar25 #MelodicBlackMetal #PathsToDeliverance #Review #Reviews #Ten
A pro shot of the amazing death metal band GOROD!
Black metal lovers, go check out Draakanaon. A very nice fellow but you can't guess by his music. One-man band, two albums a week in average, top quality material.
https://draakanaon.bandcamp.com/album/like-a-ship-on-the-reefs-of-death
I heard final versions of the new Fetters album, it's terrific - and not only because i sing on it !
If you're still not familiar with Doc Ed (aka the Digging Squid)'s work, go check out the latest Black Dregs, it's slower than others but as extreme (and i also shout on one song !)
Contemplation – Au Bord du Précipice Review
By GardensTale
Mixing metal with non-metal genres is a practice as old as metal itself. But most such mixtures come about between jolly bedfellows. Folk music, orchestras, and various subgenres of rock don’t evoke clashing sounds or ideologies with the heavy and distorted. When the combination is less peanut butter & jelly and more peanut butter & sardines, is when critics look up, and oftentimes, audiences look away. We’ve had artists that mix metal with chamber music (Anareta), hip-hop (all of nu-metal), reggae (Skindred), even acoustic swing-jazz adjacent slam poetry (Dronte). But Contemplation is the first band I’ve come across that attempts to marry doom-death metal and dub, a niche genre that originated around 1970 from remixed reggae and psychedelics. Is life possible for this Frankensteinian creation, or should Au Bord du Précipice be expelled with torches and pitchforks?
Contemplation is the baby of Matthieu Ducheine, who writes everything, plays all the instruments, sings, mixes, produces, handles promos, cooks, cleans, and does the laundry. This would be an undertaking when not solving the musical equivalent of a unified field theory, but apparently he likes impossible challenges. Because Contemplation works. Doom-death is a clever choice to merge with dub; they have similar pacing and share a certain sense of meditative contemplation. Point to Ducheine for picking an apt moniker. He demonstrates many ways to mix the styles successfully across Au Bord du Précipice, and the most prominent is an unexpected third disparate element: the violin. Its lush and ethereal sound functions as an important binding agent, and Ducheine is clearly a master, employing everything from thrilling trills to fragile held notes to complex melodic dashes across the scales.
If all the focus had been on the odd combination, Au Bord du Précipice would have likely remained little more than an interesting gimmick, but the pieces receive as much attention as the whole. Strip out the atmospheric passages and the dub, and the remainder would still be a very solid doom-death album. “Endless Mental Slavery” locks in with a great pounding riff that receives embellishments from every corner throughout the track. After a shimmering violin intro, “Réminiscence Ancestrale” settles into a heavy swinging riff reminiscent of Usurpress with an energetic hammered solo to boot. Ducheine’s growl is more limited than his instrumental prowess, but its cavernous quality helps add a little extra weight. Though there are stretches that get a little overstretched, and some of the more experimental elements don’t always hit the mark (such as the odd vocoded humming on “Le Recours Aux Montagnes”), Contemplation does a great job keeping it interesting.
I can’t properly comment on the quality of the dub side of the moon,1 but the range of ways the psychedelic echoing chords and beats are used is like walking through a gallery of musical inspiration. The atmospheric stretches revolve around the interplay between the dub and the violin, but even when the thunder rolls in, well-chosen snare hits and string plucks roll away with the same wide reverb, bridging the gap and increasing the cohesion between the poles. Contemplation is fully produced by Ducheine himself, a fact he is deservedly proud of. The mix is balanced, the attention to detail meticulous, and the master warm and inviting.
Clearly, Ducheine is a man of many talents, diverse interests, and a metric fuckton of sheer goddamn conviction to pull off a project like this. Because I’ve been listening to metal for over two decades, but none of it sounded quite like Au Bord du Précipice. The dub inflicts a laidback attitude that persists even through double bass drums and bellowing roars. This is death-adjacent metal you can sink into the pillows with, and once you’re there, you get treated to beautiful violins from the top of a forested hill. Something this experimental won’t always work, and there are bits and pieces that feel off. But how well Contemplation works anyway is a testament to a very creative mind, and I dearly hope Ducheine will continue to develop this remarkable project.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Self-released
Website: metalcontemplation.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025
#2025 #35 #Anareta #AuBordDuPrécipice #Contemplation #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #Dronte #Experimental #FrenchMetal #Mar25 #PinkFloyd #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #Skindred #Usurpress
Reading some news of the world now and then gives me all the anger and disgust I need to write plenty of lyrics, my notebook is filli.g up quickly.
I had a song about that : "What a great time for grindcore, we'll never run out of lyrics".
By the way our mini-cd is on full streaming here with lyrics and comments
Wÿntër Ärvń – Sous l’Orage Noir – L’Astre et la Chute Review
By Twelve
Wÿntër Ärvn is a really cool project. It takes its inspiration from black metal of the ’90s and channels it into an almost fully acoustic and almost fully instrumental framework, building on many familiar feelings from that space—bitterness, inner struggles, anger, the usual stuff—in a pleasant, rather than jarring way. The French one-man project writes on acoustic guitars and builds on it such instruments as the cello, shakuhachi, and, yes, clarinet—but no electric guitars in sight. It’s a powerful concept and worked very well on Abysses, to the delight of the venerable Emya. Following up is always tricky, but a new album is here to continue the journey; how does Sous l’Orage Noir – L’Astre et la Chute stand up?
I should admit straightaway that I didn’t love Abysses. On paper, it’s right up my alley—gorgeous dark and neo folk music with a beating heart from black metal- but I found that its lack of immediacy meant it didn’t work so well for me as it did for Emya (and a lot of you). Sous l’Orage Noir – L’Astre et la Chute—Under the Black Storm – The Star and the Fall—challenged my preconceived biases fast with “Un Voile sur l’Azur,” a calming, peaceful tune that utilizes bagpipes and whistles from Geoffroy Dell’Aria (Les Bâtards du Nord, Épaves) to stunning effect. Similarly, “Remembrances” is a gorgeous song in a similar vein, with compelling acoustic guitar and a beautiful hurdy-gurdy lead that has placed it among my most-listened-to songs over the past few weeks. It is evocative—mesmerizing, even—with an appropriately strong sense of melancholy and nostalgia that hangs over Sous l’Orage Noir in the best possible way.
As alluded to above, there is a strong diversity of instruments across Sous l’Orage Noir, thanks in part to a variety of guest musicians. Raphaël Verguin (In Cauda Venenum, Psygnosis) provides cello for “Ad Vesperam,” Vittorio Sabelli (Dawn of a Dark Age) performs clarinet for “Vingt Ans de Brouillard” and “L’Astre et la Chute,” and there’s even a harp from Laurène Telennaria (Orkhys). Similarly, not all tracks are instrumental, with singing and a few growls (Judith De Lotharingie of Ofdrykkja and Wÿntër Ärvń himself, respectively) making rare appearances throughout. Many of these elements were present in Abysses, of course, but I love the way the songwriting, production, and album direction support them. The way Sabelli’s clarinet emerges as if from the titular fog in “Vingt Ans de Brouillard” is so memorable, as is the way “Appelé à l’Abîme” builds and builds before Telennaria’s singing descends as if from a great distance. Wÿntër Ärvń demonstrates excellent songwriting on Sous l’Orage Noir, like the best of October Falls, while taking influence from across the French metal scene.
There are only two things I don’t love about Sous l’Orage Noir (a great thing to be able to say for a dark folk album). The first is that I’m not convinced the growls work with the music. While I understand the relation to black metal, I think Wÿntër Ärvń’s is too removed from the original style—his hoarse, rough growling is a stark contrast to a song as lovely as “Ad Vesperam,” and breaks my immersion a bit. It’s not even a bad choice—the backdrop of chants and percussion supports it really well, but the song itself is almost peaceful up to that point. The second is that I don’t think the back half of the album does enough to distinguish itself from the first four or five tracks, making Sous l’Orage Noir feel a bit front-loaded. I don’t love the melody in “L’Astre et la Chute, for example;” it feels passive, while “Sous L’Orage Noir” leans a bit too much on repetition. Neither are bad songs, but they don’t do much to keep up the momentum from the openers.
On the other hand, these are the same qualities that make it so easy to load Wÿntër Ärvń, close your eyes, and get carried away by the music. There is a phenomenal sense of flow to Sous l’Orage Noir – L’Astre et la Chute that complements its style so well. Whether you’re a fan of metal or folk, there’s something to love here. In my mind, Sous l’Orage Noir is a step up from Abysses, and has made me a real fan of Wÿntër Ärvń— I can’t wait to see where the music flows from here.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Antiq Records
Website: facebook.com/wynterarvnneofolk
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025
#2025 #35 #AntiqRecords #DawnOfADarkAge #Épaves #FrenchMetal #InCaudaVenenum #LesBâtardsDuNord #Mar25 #Neofolk #OctoberFalls #Ofdrykkja #Orkhys #Psygnosis #Review #Reviews #SousLOrageNoirLAstreEtLaChute #WÿntërÄrvń
It's bandcamp friday. You know the drill.
Any purchase, even the lowest, is welcome, as it helps spread the name around.
Cheers !
I really think you didn't yet understand how good the SADRAEN album "Idols Of Ruin" is. Much love.
Between 2010 and 2015 BWWI was not yet dead for me, I wrote new songs and finally managed to get a full band together, meeting in 2013 by chance Charles, a drummer without a band (what ??!!) who believed his friend Flo played a bit of guitar.
We spent a bit more of a year rehearsing and gave one gig at a private party. Some videos were available on youtube but the cymbals were awful so Doc Ed revamped it.
https://bornwithwormsinside.bandcamp.com/album/j-b-l-c-live-2014
By Doom_et_Al
A few years ago, my girlfriend and I went to a well-renowned barista in Paris. He was amicable and efficient, and when he handed my girlfriend her latte she enquired if she could have it with some sugar. “No,” he cheerfully rejoined. And that was the end of the conversation. I still smile when I think about this event because it sums up a lot of what I love about the French: quirky and uncompromising. Don’t fuck up their beautiful drink with your primitive sugar. The same attitude is what makes their black metal so endearing and interesting. So much of it is original and avant-garde and just… French. So I was intrigued to review Aube Noir, the debut of a new metal outfit, Arkaist, formed in 2023 by two stalwarts of the French underground scene, Beobachtan and Maeror. It also arrives on the well-regarded label Antiq. Much to be excited about. Lord knows I could do with some strong French coffee…
The first thing to note is that French may be, but Arkaist’s sound is much more closely related to their second-wave Norwegian counterparts. This is very straight-down-the-line black metal that borrows heavily from Immortal and Darkthrone. And this is where we hit the first snag. Aube Noir is so poker-faced and derivative that very little of it stands out. Arkaist surely have an identity, but you would be hard-pressed to find it on their debut. The music suggests they are aiming for something raw and scary, but the lyrics – focused as they are on the philosophy of a decaying society – muddy the waters by proposing introspective and intellectual ideas. The songs themselves are neither riffy enough to count as catchy black metal, nor fuzzy and distorted for a more atmospheric vibe. The result is an album that is unsure of what it is, and as a result, plays things far too safe.
This “safety first” approach is further evidenced in the compositions themselves. Beyond some nice moments here and there, they’re entirely formulaic. Chords move up and down with the unpredictability of a porn film. The structure is rigid with very few explorations beyond the most banal and unadventurous (“Ode à la haine” sounds like it lives and breathes its entire 4-minute run time in 5 notes). The whole endeavor can perhaps best be summed up by Maeror’s vocal performance. It is repetitive and one-note, lacking any real feeling or variation. Inexplicably, it is brought to the front of the mix, perhaps to hide the dearth of music ideas backing it.
It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. These are seasoned musicians, so there are some good moments here and there. “Terre ancestrale” has an interesting chant to begin proceedings, before launching into crunchy, mid-paced black metal that hits the spot. “Puer Aeternus” injects some feeling into a satisfying close. These moments paradoxically frustrate because they show what Arkaist are capable of, but so haphazardly deliver. The whole album has an authentically malevolent sheen, lending it an aura of authenticity. The downside is that the guitars are muddied at the expense of the unexciting vocals, creating a nondescript blur.
Aube Noir, then, is ultimately hugely disappointing. An exciting project from seasoned musicians on a discerning label? Combined with the fact that French metal is usually chock-full of character and personality? This thing checks so many interesting boxes. What we have instead is bland and lacklustre; music devoid of any sense of direction or personality. Songs that can’t decide what they’re going for beyond sounding kvlt. Arkaist need to inject some personality and drive into their material fast. In the meantime, there’s better coffee to be found elsewhere.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Antiq Records
Websites: arkaist.bandcamp.com/album/aube-noire | www.facebook.com/p/Arkaist
Releases Worldwide: February 24th, 2025
#15 #2025 #AntiqRecords #Arkaist #AubeNoir #BlackMetal #Darkthrone #Feb25 #FrenchMetal #Immortal #Review #Reviews
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