Les Acteurs de l'Ombre
Productions is this great, but relatively small French label, that released
several (mainly French) acts, which circle around the more progressive,
experimental black metal sounds. It’s always an anxiety and surprise what will
we find on their releases. And you can always expect something uncommon and
original. Which is a great trademark of Les Acteurs de l'Ombre, even if for me
it can be a total miss (Pensées Nocturnes' "Nom d'une Pipe!") or a
great listening experience (The Great Old Ones, Paramnesia). Recently they
unleashed some new albums and I am proud to have a chance checking them all and
writing some sentences on each of them. And I start with Deluge. It’s
relatively new project, which was formed only in 2013, but already had a demo
and now a debut full length album titled “Æther” is released. First, I was
quite sceptic when seeing the artwork, which surely is not typical for (black)
metal bands, but since I cannot read the French lyrics I will put the
conceptual side of “Æther” aside and focus just on the music.
And I do admit that Deluge
music is damn awesome. They’re not a typical black metal band. Well, I am not
sure if they’re black metal at all, even if there are many influences from this
style of music. As a whole, “Æther” is far from what we usually call
“traditional black metal”. For sure though the so called post metal / post
black metal and even post hard core are the foundation of this music, if only by
the “post” term we mean the way of creating the mood and generally when we deal
with these unique song structures that are so characteristic for this style of
music. What I really like in it is how the guitars are setting up the feeling,
as they often have this kind of hypnotizing mood that puts you into some sort
of trance. And for me this music can even be instrumental for a long time, with
vocals being something additional, as long as the atmosphere is there. And
well, it definitely is in Deluge! The riffs, especially when played in slower
pace, have this thunderous, heavy punching strength, with some clean guitar
tones here and there to set a calmer atmosphere... which is always a classic
“calm before the storm” thing, as soon Deluge erupts with another distorted and
massacring riffage. I am actually surprised that Deluge has so many damn fast,
blasting parts, as it’s not something so common for this genre, I suppose. And
believe me, “Æther” is releasing the fury and anger and is more uncompromising
than most of similar albums. This is also where that black metal side of the
album prevails.
It’s a long album, close to
one hour of music, but it never feels too much, since Deluge does everything to
bring as much variation as possible, even if they don’t really go anywhere
further than a mixture of the mentioned fast black metal and post metal /
hardcore riffage with some clean guitar tones here and there. But they do it
well enough. You can hear that already in “Avalanche”, which is the first song
here, kicking off with some seriously massacring piece, which actually do have
the strength and speed of avalanche, destroying everything on its way with no
mercy. But later in this song they find time to calm down, to bring a quiet,
sorrowful theme… and that ends again abruptly with another riff played with
neckbreaking speed. That sounds great. And I am not even bothered with these
vocals, which are more like a hard core scream than black metal shriek, since
they just fit the music very well.
In “Appât” I like the blasts
again, but also that sick melody in it and sort of epic touch added to some of
the fragments. Then we have “Mélas | Khōlé” and “Naufrage” and they are again
simply awesome songs, especially the latter, as it’s so damn heavy, so damn
memorable also, just crushing you into the ground. I almost regret that the
band speeds up in this song again, as it becomes kind of their own cliché and maybe
this song should go a bit different direction. Anyway, it’s still damn awesome,
I like it a lot for being heavy, but also for the melancholic, tranquil finish.
And later “Klarträumer” brings attention, as it’s a long instrumental piece, so
it reminds me Pelican or this sort of bands, with some blackish riffs breaking
the calmness somewhere in the mid section. This song as well as “Hypoxie“
perfectly resumes the whole album.
And well, I can say that
Deluge did fantastic job with “Æther”. I mean, this album doesn’t lack
anything, it is superbly performed, the songwriting is great, song structures
are interesting and more so, the production is simply powerful, so every riff
and other instruments are heavy and neck breaking. Great, recommendable debut,
so do not hesitate to grab a copy.
Standout tracks: “Klarträumer”,
“Hypoxie“,“Naufrage”
Final rate: 80/100
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