MORTUAIRE : "Monde Vide"

 

France is often thought of as an exporter of Black Metal but here is a death metal band to challenge that notion. The members hail from projects like Year of No Light and the Great Old Ones, which helped pique my interest. There is an interesting old-school production choice. Things are organic and open sounding, rather than cavernous or the in-your-face basement jam sound, They draw from early death metal that traces back it its thrash roots. This works better on the opening track than the second song that chugs along perhaps too similar ground. 

Things do not change until the title track brings more of a darker melancholic doom tone to the table. The vocals take on a more anguished growl. This shift does provide the album with a needed dynamic shift. Comprised of only five songs, every minute counts. This song indulges in ten of those minutes and uses them more wisely than the previous song, which did not suck it was just too close to the opening track sonically. After giving this one a second listen I appreciate the atmosphere and the somewhat sung phrases. "Tranchant' has almost an Entombed-like groove to the buzz saw grinding of the guitar. Much more death metal, than doom, though it does not focus on double bass speed. 

The last song does descend back into doom but the broad strokes of it feel like they are resisting themes we have already heard them bang around with on this album along with some of the more typical death metal tropes being involved though run through a filter of a darker and more dismal vision of death metal for what it is worth. I will give this album an 8, I think they have promise as a unit, but know they are more capable of thinking about of the book given the project they have hailed from. The key selling point is this is death metal that captures the grim futility that doom celebrates. This album is being released on World Eater Records. 

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Year of No Light : " Consolamentum"

 This French sludge project delves deeply into post rock. I am unsure how many members are in the band as I have seen pictures with as many as 9 , but they seem to tour with six. The opening track is big and cinematic and for a 12 minute instrumental they kept my attention so they must be doing something right. It can not all just be capturing a sound , there has to be a sense of composition if not song writing in play. The second song , is not as heavy but more post rock in the sweepingly grandiose soundtrack feel . This one is seven a half minutes, the two drummers are earning their pay with this one.  Sonically the scope of what they do here and the scale of dynamics employed could easily appeal to fans of more progressive appeal and I feel like post- rock has always had one foot in prog while pretending to not be as pretentious. I like how they pound the point home and bring the heavy back in the last two minutes of the song. 

The third song is darker in tone and more doom like in the deliberate manner it trudges to life. Five and a half minutes into things the riff shifts into something more doom like. The laying of sound they have crafted does make a good argument for the small orchestra of a band assembled to create this. The song slowly builds speed until they are hitting you with a much more punishing pounding of sound.  They make the 11 minutes pass by pretty easily so they must be doing something right. At almost thirteen minutes the fourth song is just a little longer than the opening track , though it is more atmospheric and tender in it's intentions. This is the first song that sheds all metallic aspirations and soars into a place more focused on the post rock dynamic. A few minutes into this one the mood changes and a more foreboding aggression clenches it's teeth in the manner of attack. In many ways these guys are not far removed from the kind of sonic ground covered by Russian Circles , though the bass lines are not the primary back bone .

Where guitar drove the point home earlier the synths that jockey for equal footing in the mix here, bring a retro sci-fi soundtrack here. More Kraut rock in the droning throb that they build around. By sci-fi this is big budget art house not campy 60s sci fi.  The first six minutes work of  the spacey narcotic drone I mentioned earlier. The fact that it can hold my attention as an instrumental says something. In fact it is a pretty solid testament to this entire album since instrumental music is not normally what I listen to and tends to fall along the lines of what I appreciate, to to win me over this album gets a 9.