French Metal

Sycomore – Bloodstone Review

By Kenstrosity on February 11, 2020 in 2020, Argonauta Records, French Metal, Reviews, Sludge, Sludge, 7 comments

“Sludge metal. Depending on who you ask, it’s either awesome or meh. If you ask me, sludge falls under the hit-or-miss category, with an unfortunate bias towards miss. When everything comes together, e.g. all four records of Beastwars and the first four of Mastodon, the result is usually a monolithic slab of grimy riffs and scathing vocal assaults drowned in the fuzz of the damned. This is a good thing. However, all other times you end up with something about as interesting/enjoyable as room-temperature coffee poured out of a carafe stained as yellow as the dust inside a chain-smoker’s PC. This is a bad thing.” Sludge life.

Svart Crown – Wolves Among the Ashes Review

By Roquentin on February 5, 2020 in 2020, Black Metal, Century Media, Death Metal, French Metal, Reviews, Black Metal, Death Metal, 28 comments

“While Svart Crown have never shied away from ambitious concepts, Wolves Among the Ashes presents, for better or worse, the most direct sublimation of extramusical ideas in their style. Initially, the music is as demented as the psychological and sociological madness they choose to explore.” Wolves and madmen.

DarkTribe – Voici l’homme Review

By Roquentin on January 21, 2020 in 2020, French Metal, Power Metal, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Scarlet Records, Power Metal, 14 comments

“Rather than a refreshed take on a démodé genre, DarkTribe’s music feels as if abducted from the late 1990s or early 2000s and put into stasis, trapped in that timeline and preserved in a pristine state forever. So powerful and candid is this stylistic anachronism that the band’s third LP Voici l’homme acts as a rotten Proustian Madeleine, eternally evoking yet never reaching the sonic imagery of first encounters with bands such as Labyrinth, Stratovarius, and Evergrey.” Lost tribes.

Ars Moriendi – La solitude du pieux scélérat [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]

By Dr. A.N. Grier on January 9, 2020 in 2019, Archaic Sound, Black Metal, French Metal, Reviews, Things You Might Have Missed 2019, Black Metal, 68 comments

“I may drive like a twenty-year-old, dad-joke like a forty-year-old, but I’m as fit as a flabby sixty-year-old and as spry as a seventy-year-old. I have two cups of coffee and have diarrhea for the rest of the day and, two beers later, I’m drunk. Yet, with Angry Metal Age comes Angry Metal Wisdom. As well as a lot of annual visits from old friends to the old-people home. This year, visits came from Darkthrone, Kampfar, Rimfrost, Sorxe, Stormhammer, Via Vengeance, War Curse, Reign of Fury, Second to Sun, and others. One visit I was most excited about was from Ars Moriendi.” Olde habits.

Véhémence – Par le Sang Versé [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]

By Twelve on January 9, 2020 in 2019, Antiq Records, Black Metal, French Metal, Reviews, Things You Might Have Missed, Things You Might Have Missed 2019, Black Metal, 40 comments

“Medieval black metal. I barely know what the phrase means, but the concept is absolutely drenched in potential, and not the kind I can easily resist. For today’s thing you may (or may not) have missed, the conceptual and instrumental depth of Apocalypse Orchestra meets the sweeping, majestic anger wielded by Obsequiae, with bits of extra influence here and there from the French black metal scene. Joining said scene, Véhémence’s sophomore effort, Par le Sang Versé seeks to bring the past to vivid life in a powerful display of⁠—what was it again?⁠—Medieval. Black. Metal.” Ye olde blackness.

Creature – Contes Funèbres [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]

By Cherd on January 5, 2020 in Avante Garde, Black Metal, French Metal, Progressive Metal, Self-released, Things You Might Have Missed, Things You Might Have Missed 2019, Black Metal, Progressive Metal, 35 comments

On Contes Funèbres, Fournier’s second as Creature, there are sounds and styles that can be found in our world, but they’ve been arranged by a mind that surely originates elsewhere. Yes, this is black metal at a foundational level, but there is so much synth prog, electronic trickery, odd vocals and anachronistic choral arrangements that calling it any one thing is pointless.” Creature features.

Gorgon – Elegy [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]

By Kenstrosity on January 5, 2020 in 2019, Death Metal, Dusktone, French Metal, Reviews, Symphonic Metal, Things You Might Have Missed 2019, Death Metal, 42 comments

“Unlike the other Gorgon from France that released a 43-minute album in January, this Gorgon plays an opulent brand of symphonic death metal—a personal favorite subgenre of mine. That their second full-length Elegy released two weeks into the year and is still kicking my posterior like the absolute badass it is should tell you all you need to know.” Gorgon will eat you.

Rose Tint: El Cuervo’s Discoveries of 2019

By El Cuervo on December 23, 2019 in American Metal, Blog Posts, Danish Metal, Dutch Metal, English Metal, French Metal, Heavy Metal, Non-Metal Metal Things, NWOBHM, Progressive Rock, Speed Metal, Thrash Metal, 56 comments

“Following my last couple of year-end lists, it should now not come as a shock that I spent more time fleshing out my historical knowledge of music than my contemporary knowledge. In honor of my abject failure in keeping my eye on the present, I have received approval to document my ever-deeper plundering of previous decades in an article detailing my favorite older records which I first heard in 2019.” Old things, young ears.

Blut Aus Nord – Hallucinogen [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]

By Roquentin on December 20, 2019 in 2019, Black Metal, Debemur Morti, Experimental Metal, French Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Reviews, Things You Might Have Missed, Things You Might Have Missed 2019, Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, 48 comments

“Whichever the style, the quality of <'sb>Blut Aus Nord output never faltered. They could and have done whatever they wanted. Yet even in such a varied discography, their thirteenth LP Hallucinogen arrives as a sharp and expectedly unexpected detour. An ascendance to a higher celestial plane.” Black trip.

Hypno5e – A Distant (Dark) Source Review

By GardensTale on November 30, 2019 in 2019, French Metal, Pelagic Records, Post-metal, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Post-Metal, Progressive Metal, 21 comments

“Genres are one of the most contentious features of music in general, and metal in particular, considering the wide sprawl of sub-subtypes we have dug around ourselves. I won’t dive into the deeper discussion about the merits of this labyrinthine web here, but I will make the case for ‘cinematic metal’ to be the most useless genre tag in the metalverse. Bands ranging from power metal to black metal and everything in between have laid claim to it, and the argumentation for it rarely stretches beyond ‘there’s a story in the lyrics.’” Sourcing a feeling.