After a healthy amount of shorter releases, French Black Metallers Cénotaphe have delivered their first full length album. Out now via Nuclear War Now Productions and Ossuaire Records.
Deep ambient synths chime in with a rich and nicely textured introduction, preparing us for a thick and immersive listen of pure mystical brilliance. Scathing guitars jump in with that bitterly melancholic yet ripping ferocity that France has mastered for many years. Blasting drums pound along with a huge array of killer patterns and cymbal attacks that are volatile and relentless. So the instrumental section is marvellous from the off, what about the vocals? The vocalist wastes no time delving into a tortured and wounded style of screeching that would be appropriate on a DSBM record if it wasn’t due to the pure vitriol in the delivery which is as vicious as the riffing and blastbeats accompanying them.
Sacrilegious and cold, Cénotaphe move further into their depraved and malignant soundscape with each piece transcending from the last with a raw yet expansive production, especially in the warmth of the bass coming through the frosty guitars, drums and vocals. Sparse synths do appear to further haunt you with the barbarism of the rest of the band, adding more dynamics while always retaining a subtlety that does not get in the way of this ravaging tempest of pure Black Metal might. With monumental atmospherics, walls of piercing songwriting, cutting structures and touches of dissonance, this record is devastatingly intense from start to finish.
If the monstrous approach to the music wasn’t enough, then surely the execution of definitively genuine disdain, complexity in the melodies with primal assaults still hitting strong throughout and a gloriously, richly submersing ambience will have all Black Metal fans aghast in total adoration of this release. There is gorgeously soaring leads, frantic rhythms and drums, disciplined battery through more aggressive sections and these gorgeous, almost tranquil, breaks. Cénotaphe did not miss a detail or nuance no matter how fine in crafting this monumental tome of Black Metal excellence that is a meditative and destructive new hallmark on the high quality output of France in the Extreme Metal world and a respectable entity in its own right too.
Thoroughly intense, enjoyable and bitterly raw, savage and chaotic Black Metal with fantastically written, transcendent songs delivered by two insanely talented musicians. Balanced in such a gorgeously well-rounded manner for the ultimate delivery of ferocious conjurations and spectral mysticism, this is some of the most captivating material I have heard in a while from France, which in itself is a bold statement. Truly magnificent. -9/10
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