This second full length from the Quebecois duo of Athros and Nordet, who also play in Forteresse and Ur Falc’h respectively, has been a difficult album to review. I was keen to hear it because of the Forteresse connection, although it has to be added that their previous work if you come to it first might put you off a little as it is not the strongest folk/black metal you’ll ever hear. Still, that is the past and as they have chosen to title this album so simply I half suspect it may be seen as a new beginning in some ways. I am also painfully afraid that it is just a quirk in my own character that leads me to the score below (I know you’ve peeked), so more than usual I need to explain.
Over a decade and a half ago I recall reading an interview/review connected to the Norwegian black metal scene which posited the theory of ‘sceneius’, where a close knit and partially isolated group of exemplary artists feed into each others inventiveness and imagination and this grows not just the scene but the art produced as a result. I am seriously wondering if something similar is tucked away in Quebec…
Opening with a treble heavy thrashing bm attack that initially seems of the lo-fi order of someone like Ildjarn, vocals suddenly erupt with a sore throated scream of what sounds like “Bataille!” and the song just crashes in. The cacophonous chaos of ‘Tels Des Beliers’ driven guitar thrash and drums that sound like kitchen shelves collapsing shakes itself a couple of times and resolves itself into a raw black metal thrash. It’s somewhere around here that I realise that what I had taken for a lo-fi approach is actually just the choice of sound. There is a sparse sound, accentuated by the treble, but particularly as the song slows the depth and variation in the drums and the perfect sound level pitching of the vocals amidst the racket is brought into focus. It’s a cracking opening.
‘Traditionelle IV’ opens up another facet of the band. You expect folk from the title but not quite in the form they deliver, perhaps. Strong, martial drumming gives way to a minute long, dizzying fiddle reel played entirely on guitar with a manic, harsh zeal that manages to be epic and insular all together like a possessed fiddle player standing utterly focussed on the music amidst scenes of battle.
‘L’Esprit Du Courant’ returns to the ripping, a skin tearing scream opening up a cold mid paced bit of highly traditional old school black metal with a lurking melody that only comes out of hiding behind the onslaught in the closing section. That refrain goes straight for the wound the song has opened with a gut wrenching, yearning sound part Burzum, part Windir. Maybe a touch of last album Sargeist. Heady company.
There is a punk intensity to all this, the sound and feel of a band wearing their hearts on their sleeves and rubbing them raw. They have given themselves no place to hide here, not least in the vocals, and if I understood French-Canadian I suspect I would be able to pick out a considerable amount of the lyrics on tracks such as the angry ‘ Rouge Souvenir D’Antant’, too.
The weird thing for me, here, is that this is an intensely traditional black metal sound but with its own identity intact. The melody which rises and falls in such magnificent songs as ‘Le Lieu De La Vengeance’ and ‘ Moe J’me Souviens does so without losing a grip on the cold harsh reality and the vocals, so reminiscent of …In The Woods early days, are just brilliant at conveying the anger, frustration and turbulence of an unforgiving land.
When the stronger folk melodies are used, they are not obtained by dragging in a passing accordion player and wedging a fiddle on top, it is done through the melodies transposed to guitar and thrashed into a rough and raw black metal spike, played with that manic hint of possession and with sore throated vocals stripping free every last drop of emotion it can scrape up. Just check out ‘St Eustace’.
The album ends with the long ‘Quand Les Corbeaux Crient Leur Haine’. It has a rolling and snarling sound with a strange but compelling acoustic break accentuating the manic, possessed feel to so much of this. There is something of the Sargeist in the driving, relentless push of the song through dark, unsettled landscapes and it is a strong and fitting finale.
I haven’t a clue aboutQuebecnationalist politics, or the views of the band. I deliberately have not applied a combination of my basic French and the internet to any translations beyond song titles. That may be sticking my head in the sand I don’t know. This is a review of the album as it stands.
It is magnificent. Harsh, almost pure black metal with hints of Sargeist and Burzum and Windir in amongst the thick, angry Quebecois folk tinged mix on things. The folk elements are used judiciously and in a way that never changes the impression that this is black metal. It also flows so well as an album that despite the excellent individual songs I want to listen to it be as a whole every time.
Few albums have impressed me as much in recent times. I can think of Warning’s ‘Watching From A Distance’, Destroyer 666’s ‘In Defiance’, Sargeist’s ‘Let The Devil In’. I tried to make myself sick of it by putting it on a loop. I failed. It is my favourite album this year so far by a margin and musically it hits me in the soul and guts. The only music I have enjoyed more this year was Skepticism live.
Head and heart say that leaves me only one place to go but if I say that I really don’t want to give this score you need to believe me. It is because it brings a huge weight of expectation which by the nature of things will not be reflected in most peoples opinions. In truth I will only know if I’m right at the end of the year, but you need a score now so I’ll do you a deal: If this isn’t top of my albums of the year either it’s been an unheard of year or you will get a sincere apology from me.
(10/10 Gizmo)
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