Away - Cities

AWAY - Cities
2013
Utech Records

Michel "Away" Langevin, famous for his drumming in the avant-garde band Voivod and for his psychedelic sci-fi album art, has had many side projects over the years, some more surprising than others. Musically speaking, we should mention the superb electro-rock project Kosmos, and also Les Ékorchés, an acoustic-metal outfit, among others. He also designed many album covers, from the instrumental Humanoid to the technical progressive band Behold the Arctopus, Dave Grohl's Probot side-project, and most of Voivod's discography. A hard cover biography, "Worlds Away", was written about him by none other than Martin Popoff in 2009, offering for the first time a holistic portrait of the artist and his legacy.

At first glance, Cities comes as another UFO in Away's portfolio: it is experimental and artistic rather than being instrumental or musical. Consisting of a selection of recordings made between 2010 and 2012, the cd is a series of soundtracks from various locations across the world. From an extra-terrestrial point of view, the theme almost seems to be the visual and audible congregation of mankind in its daily habit. For you and me, however, it's hard to separate the spectacular events from the ordinary when we don't know the context of these recordings.

While listening to Cities, we end up trying to guess the backstory of each chapter: are we in Montréal's metro? Is this a bohemian musician in a public square in Europe? On another track, is it an intercultural celebration that we hear? Back to Montréal in 2012, is this one of the famous student demonstrations? Why do we hear a series of names in Mexico City in 2012? Is Away trying to show us excerpts of the cultural exchanges in each of these cities or is he just interested in music used in public spaces across the world? While we don't find answers to these questions in the booklet, it is clear that the individual events aren't the real subject of this album. Likewise, the track titles are both abstract and anonymous: "Europe 2011", "Chicago 2012", "Montréal 2010", etc. While the string of stories is somewhat obscure, all of these public spaces tell us that despite our different cultures, we share a common experience of the city.

Like the lives behind its walls, Cities has many different layers. The top skin is made of Michel "Away" Langevin's talented, eerie graphic art. The white cd (white on white) slips out of a plain black envelope, folded in a matte 4-page booklet. There are two drawings, printed in white and silver, depicting a single entity surrounded by a cityscape. It is simple, but powerful.

The artistic approach to this album is close to an audio novel: not a documentary, but a traveller's personal journal. This form of testimony has been popular throughout history, especially for explorers. In Away's case, it is unpretentious, abstract, and anonymous to a certain degree. It is not narrated, and there aren't any audio traces of the traveller. On Cities, we are a mute witness into what Away has been recording; but we are only experiencing glimpses of it.

The graphic art of Cities pays hommage to another graphic genre: the wordless novel. Mostly associated with engraving, these mostly black-and-white books used to be precursors to the comic strips. They emerged in the 20th Century, parallel to the idea of a Global Village, like universal translators that helped share personal stories from one continent to another. We can think of the dark realities of the Great Depression as depicted by Giacomo Patri and Laurence Hyde, or the dramatic figures of Lynd Ward (picture below).

 

Frans Masereel (1889-1972) is regarded as the first master of wordless novels. Between the two World Wars, at a time when cities were starting to change drastically and mankind was experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly of these new challenges, the wordless novel was a way to express the hopes, challenges, frustrations, and despair of many of these men and women.

There is a strong iconological link between Away's Cities and the wordless novels. Beyond the iconographic elements of the cover artwork of Cities, we become witnesses to this fast-paced, dynamic urban environment. Although it is an anonymous journey, the omnipresent mute presence behind the recording tells us we are single entities watching and listening, as this world turns. In other words, on Cities, we are ghosts wandering through places and time.

Away has a strong artistic background, and while his new project steps further in the avant-garde audio garden, it also follows a rich artistic heritage: one of graphic art and storytelling.

Neige et Noirceur - Natura Mortis Sonoris

NEIGE ET NOIRCEUR - Natura Mortis Sonoris
2013
Dusktone

At first glance, Natura Mortis Sonoris is like an odd ball in Neige et Noirceur's discography. First, this is not a black metal album and it will seem out of place for those who have only heard the post-2010 albums (especially La Seigneurie des Loups, and Hymnes de la Montagne Noire). Second, this is a compilation of songs taken from different albums, EPs and demos: out of their original context, the atmosphere these songs used to create is somehow lost, or at least heavily altered.

All of Neige et Noirceur's albums/EPs that I know had an atmospheric black metal 'thing' at their core. There were drums, guitars, and lyrics. Natura Mortis Sonoris goes the opposite direction. It is shapeless, boneless, but scary nonetheless. The songs are either excerpts, extended, or simply different versions from the ones we find on the original albums. They cover many of the pre-2010 releases, starting with the very first 2005 demo, Pour te Dire la Fin. Like a hand-picked selection of monochromatic Smarties, they are the dark tones that dressed the original albums in their mourning clothes.

This compilation may be a curved ball for Neige et Noirceur, but it achieves its goal perfectly. It shows us what stands under the ghoulish atmospheric black metal cloak: melancholy, solitude, fear, and darkness. These feelings have been moving every single release, but on Natura Mortis Sonoris they are pure.

On the one hand, there are very few beats or musical tempos throughout the 15 songs, except maybe for "3rd Hymne Fragment", "Aux Portes de la Crypte" or "Loudun (part 1)". Even when "Orlok" kicks in with a brief and distant blastbeat, it is covered by a heavy layer of keyboards. On the other hand, this compilation contains a diversity of noises, instruments, and artistic directions. There are footsteps, wind, animal sounds, bells, keyboards, acoustic guitars, off voices (movie excerpts), echoes, and space/void. The songs come in and out like fading waves, or like feverish nightmares that keeps pulling us back into an endless night.

For an atmospheric album, this is refreshing and very interesting. It is as dynamic as an album from This is Past, yet as haunting as Wolvserpent. All of that plus a unique, personal aesthetic.

Natura Mortis Sonoris reminded me why I liked Neige et Noirceur in the first place. The sculptured atmospheres are very suggestive: keyboard and synth sounds are definitely artificial, while animated sounds (animals, humans, wind) are plenty. Whether we call it occult, scary, cartoonish or colourful, it definitely has a strong character.

While I really enjoy this album - just as much as any of Neige et Noirceur's full lengths - I find the songs too short. Atmosphere requires time; in order to lose myself into a dark melancholic album, I need a catharsis of more than 3 or 4 minutes. Sure enough, there is a 12+ minutes "Loin des Hommes, Prêt [sic] des Bêtes", but I feel that more of these would have allowed the listener to dive deeper into the Neige et Noirceur world. This is unfortunate, since everything else is flawless.

http://dusktone.bigcartel.com
http://www.dusktone.eu
http://www.zimondofin.com/neigeetnoirceur/

Warground - Sorrowful Sounds of Emptiness (EP)

WARGROUND - Sorrowful Sounds of Emptiness
2013
Depressive Illusions Records

The title says it all. Sorrowful Sounds of Emptiness is the soundtrack for a season in damnation. It is gloomy, foggy, chilly, and static like a curtain of black heavy clouds that doesn't want to move away from the sun. However, this is not a doom, a funeral doom nor a black metal album, but a collection of plain atmospheric compositions.

It comes in an A5 dvd-case format, perfect to conjure the vastness of the music. Inside, we find three "songs" of 7 to 9 minutes that speak the same language. First song "Broken" is like a fall, a magnetic call of the Great Void, evoken by waves of keys/synth. It is monolithic, offering almost no variations and an unclear structure. Heavy yet vaporous, it brings the listener into a state of unbalance. "The Darkened Path of Sadness" follows, with a few reverberated notes in the dark, muffled by a veil of atmospheric long keys notes. The sky clears a bit, but only to discover that the sun is gone: it's nighttime, and it's cold. The trilogy of soundscapes ends with "A Land Taken by the Nothing", probably my favorite of the three compositions. Here we are presented with the essence of the title. We find a few delicate notes, gently laid like faeries corpses resting on fallen leaves. I would not qualify it as depressive, but rather as ominous because of the black atmosphere weighing on us through repetitive waves of keys.

In my book, an atmospheric album needs a lot of qualificatives. Sorrowful Sounds of Emptiness is what I would call a tunnel of emotions. These are monolithic and monochromatic creations. There is a limited range of instruments involved and the structures are relatively straightforward. When I listen to these songs, I feel absorbed into a vortex, but not drained of emotions, as if the songs are channels of thoughts rather than seeds of negativity. Constricted in the middle of the night, the songs capture something we do not exactly understand, something that has been morphed into sounds. In other words, Sorrowful Sounds of Emptiness is hypnotic and contemplative. Warground aptly says about its music: "There are those paths inside oneself that dare not be followed".

The 3 songs could have been soundtracks to heavier atmospheric metal tracks, or sublime outros on albums. Nonetheless, released together, the three soundscapes make an interesting ensemble.

Sorrowful Sounds of Emptiness comes as an interesting step in the Warground discography. The one-man raw black metal name has been in existence since 2012 and has two other releases already. Check these out as well, for they would appeal to fans of the raw depressive black metal cult entity Nortt. Overall, I find interesting to have a different look at Warground, and hear this exploration of sounds.

https://www.facebook.com/WargroundBand
http://depressiveillusions.com/

Loviatar - Druid's Curse (EP)

LOVIATAR - Druid's Curse
2013
Indie

Druid's Curse is the third installment in the Loviatar EP trilogy. About four months after the previous Widow's Flame and a year and a half after the Eternal Sons debut, we find another 3-songs cd, housed in a digi sleeve, with a similar layout, the same line-up, and a similar length. The least we can say is that Loviatar is consistent and approaches the construction of its EPs very seriously. Both on the visual and the musical point of view, Druid's Curse strenghtens very efficiently the band's discography, like an affirmation of its song writing and band imagery.

The fantasy continues: Loviatar's world rocks around mythical characters, as displayed by the beautiful artwork and the tracks' name.

The powerful "Curse of the Hamadryad" launches the journey with a thick wall of sound. All the instruments are burning hot and signal that we are in for a ride. The drum's skins are more silky and defined than before, the guitars have been pulled back a little bit in the mix, and there is a creamy coat of reverb tying them to the vocals' effects. Incredibly good and catchy for a post-metal / doom act, vocals are clean and upfront. The bass guitar makes use of a slight distortion and can be easily distinguished with its rich bottom and guitar picking, a sound and technique that reminds me of Mouth of the Architect, Cult of Luna and Buried Inside. It sometimes slides up and down, follows the bass drum chirurgically, or walks around like a punk rock band, adding interesting colors to the music. As for the guitars, they cover the rest of the spectrum, from left to right, from North to the South, with either atmospheric, piccolo, or straightforward playing.

The guitar work is probably best illustrated in "Elephant Graveyard", the second and instrumental track. While the bass gets clean and modest, the guitars take all the place available. They start with a few atmospheric, isolated notes, building gradually an emotive charge until it reaches its apex with lots of cymbals and chords, and dies again. When arrangements are this good, the music speaks for itself.

The doom gland is sollicitated anew on "Frost Druid", the third and last track of the EP. It has a few dragging and bluesy notes, some eruption into heavier post-metal, with bits of piccolo picking and sparks of hi-hat cutting through the reverb coating of the mix - all good ingredients to approach traditional doom while staying away from the depressive tone of it. This song is a direct dialogue with "Eternal Famine", the first song on the first EP: not only because of the doomy riffs, but also because of the "oh-oh-oh" chants. Positioned last on the EP, it is a clever reference addressed to those who have been following the band so far, coming full circle with Loviatar's EP trilogy.

Druid's Curse is 12 minutes well invested. There are no missteps, nothing is lacking, and nothing is redundant. It is without a doubt the best of the three Loviatar EPs; something you can spin any time, any day, without getting tired of it. It is also one of the best examples of Mike Bond's recording and production skills.

Druid's Curse is definitely one of the best Canadian metal EPs of 2013.

http://loviatar.bandcamp.com/album/druids-curse
http://loviatardoom.com/

Sombres Forêts - La Mort du Soleil

SOMBRES FORÊTS – La mort du soleil
2013
Sepulchral Productions

Métal noir, the Quebec self identification for francophone black metal, has become quite a fruitful nest. From Forteresse to Chasse-Galerie, and from Mysothéisme to Neige et Noirceur, it offers a large variety of genres – covering all of the orthodox, raw, pagan and atmospheric ends of the spectrum. Far from being second grade stagnant or nostalgic, the métal noir scene got the attention of a worldwide horde of black metallers around the world for its fine line-ups and avant-garde bands.

Quebec City’s Sombres Forêts is no newcomer. The offspring of brainchild Annatar, it built a solid reputation over two albums, including 2008’s Royaume de Glace. Annatar also participated with fellow label mates Neptune and Icare from Gris to a well-received side project, Miserere Luminis in 2009. Moving the journey further, La Mort du Soleil, the latest release under the Sombres Forêts moniker, brings these ideas to a new level.

La Mort du Soleil falls right into the atmospheric black metal category. Mid paced, it breathes all the way through, with a balance between heavy instrumentation and melancholic piano or guitar passages. With an absence of blast beats and very few moments of piccolo guitars attack, we get closer to latter-days Drudkh (for example on “L’Éther”) than any post-metal take on atmospheric black metal. Layers and layers of nature-like sounds, including thunderstorms, chilly winds and unknown sounds have been added, as well as additional vocals, extra guitars, and percussions. There is an impressive mastery of reversed guitars incorporation across the landscape, and rich yet delicate coats of reverb added to the music, reminding me vaguely of Arcana Coelestia and Dolorian. At certain moments, I even thought I could hear the very subtle guitar familiarity with some French avant-garde black metal bands such as Deathspell Omega (“La Disparition”).

This tasty mix of technical approaches is serving well the general atmosphere proposed by the album. Deeply melancholic, it navigates the seas of 19^th Century Romanticism. The artwork itself, designed by French artist Fursy Teyssier, is a manifest homage to J.M. William Turner’s (1775-1851) paintings. Dark, stormy and indefinite, but also beautifully powerful, it depicts perfectly the moods and atmosphere found on the eloquently-titled La Mort du Soleil.

Sombres Forêts’ third album is grandiose and its greater merit is that it will undoubtly appeal to a larger audience than métal noir bands usually do. For many, this will probably be the first atmospheric black metal album they listen to and enjoy. For many others (myself included), I think it is an album that continues the path already laid by a few others, including Gris. On that note, it would be hard not to draw comparisons with the latter: both bands are using trademark suffering screams, both released their latest album through Sepulchral Productions on the same day, and both crossed path recently in Miserere Luminis. Check out both bands, and pick up a copy of La Mort du Soleil.

www.sepulchralproductions.com
www.sepulchralproductions.bigcartel.com
www.sombresforets.blogspot.ca

Dopethrone - III

DOPETHRONE - III
2012
Indie

As its title suggests, III is the third album from Dopethrone. At this stage we know exactly what to expect from the Montréal trio: a dirty cocktail made with the crushing heaviness of sludge, the trippy grooves of stoner metal, and the general simplicity and darkness of doom. You only have to think about Electric Wizard (where the band took its name) to get a general idea of the music, although it evolved into something else not unfamiliar with the likes of Sleep or Zoroaster. Being precursors of other stoner/doom bands on the Montréal metal scene, and an inspiration for many (including Buffalo Theory Mtl), Dopethrone developed a cult following and generated an interest abroad by touring extensively.

The title III is somewhat appropriate for it follows closely the previous two offerings. III is all about continuity, bringing no suprises, and slowly moving one step further to make it even better than before. This time around, Dopethrone got a more defined production; something we notice immediately on the mid-hi spectrum as the cymbals tend to be brighter and cover more than before. For the rest, we have the exact same style of music, about the same number of songs and length as on the previous Dark Foil, and the oh-so-good filthy patches of dirt stuck on their guitars. The themes seem to continue their journey onto the seas of dope and murder - we even find a cool little sampler speech on "Storm Reefer" about marijuana, set against a backdrop of dirty bass and drum.

Playing a Dopethrone album make your house go humid and warm every time. Left alone the rings of smoke, we could call it swamp metal... It's nice and ugly, its moving and depressed at the same time. I find the sheer heaviness of the band to be highly addictive, in good parts due to the granular distortion of the guitars, the low tuning, and the monstrous screaming. The riffs and grooves have this rockish twist that make'em easily enjoyable. And with such a beautiful cover artwork, one can't avoid the Dopethrone.

Check it out.
http://dopethrone.bandcamp.com/

Skagos - Anarchic

SKAGOS - Anarchic
2013
Eternal Warfare / The Flenser Records

Don't judge a book by its cover. Many people's first reaction, looking at Skagos' latest album cover, would be to think we are on British soil, with such a title as Anarchic (God Saves the Queen!), and an overused illustration of William Blake (1757-1827), a British national artist. Based in British Columbia, Skagos has embraced various personal causes and received random or unexpected coverages, including MetalSucks.net's Completely Unreadable Band Logo of the Week.

Skagos is generally placed on the atmospheric black metal shelf, but on Anarchic we find it definitely on the far end of that shelf. The music is beyond black metal and post-black, being very progressive, or rather evolutive in its structure. At times, it definitely has some blast beats and raw guitar sound; but at other times we are visiting any genres but metal. Vocals in general vary between the thin death metal screams of Cynic and the clean post-black vocals of early Ulver - yet it incorporates a variety of choirs, clean singing, and a somewhat colourful palette of other techniques.

Released in different formats during the Winter, Anarchic was re-released by The Flenser on CD format in its full extended version. Previous to this album, Skagos has released another full length and a handful of EPs and Splits since 2007, including an excellent one with Panopticon. On Anarchic, the production is somewhat "cleaner": it has a lot more mid-hi and hi-ends, which gives it more definition, while retaining its characteristic mid-fi edge.

I can understand why there are different versions. Broken down into seven parts, Anarchic generally comes as a download into 2 or 3 blocks; these parts are more or less 'songs', but rather 'moments' knitted together into one long song.

In the beginning, it all starts with waves of chaotic but gentle guitar feedbacks and distant clean strings. Once the mood is set, it smoothly turns into a progressive intro where calm singing overlay some simple progressive guitars. ...Then, from the deep, gushes out the black metal.

This black metal borders post-black metal, or more closely what our southern neighbors have nicknamed "Cascadian black metal": it is fast, linear and repetitive, it incorporates some folk or acoustic guitar parts and can sometimes be simple in its execution, it is mostly mid-fi in its production, but very intense overall. At some point after the 12:30 bar, we can almost hear a Transylvanian Hunger reference, although we are on a totally different planet with Skagos. What I like about this band, and what differentiates it from other Cascadian black metal outfits, are the surprises that colour the music and bring us places we didn't expect, as natural as an invitation, and taking its time without forcing our hand.

The whole album flows with great ease. When the black metal part ends, like after a heavy Summer rain, we are left with clean or acoustic strings, a few atmospheric drops of electric guitars, scattered chants, and peaceful quietness. Comparisons could be drawn with Agalloch.

Back to the theme, the idea of anarchy is not innocent. On this release, anarchy speaks to chaos, the great Chaos that lies behind Creation. Depicting this relation, we have an image behind another on the cover; more specifically there is a picture of nature hidden behind Urizen, Blake's artistic reference to the divine Creator. It comes as no surprise that nature is also a recurrent theme used by folk and black metal, and part of this inspiration on the West Coast are the Cascades mountains, or Canadian Rockies beyond the Great White North border. The concept of Anarchic is rather powerful, and the music convinces us. The journey back to the origins of life itself is long, but Skagos is masterfully able to carry us along the way until we find it deep inside of us.

25-some minutes after it all started, when all drums and distortion fade out, we plunge deep into It, and we face It. An off-voice speaks to us, while speaking to itself: "It seems the World was born out of an injury; some great wound inflicted into something that was here before...". At this point we are all ears, as it continues deep down into its own reflections. When it dies, a trembling voice picks it up, singing strong, although fragile and plaintive at the same time, over an atmospheric background music. Beautiful as frailty, the solitary narrative thread moves the journey further.

From this point on, and for another long passage, we are no longer visiting the realms of black metal, not even post-black, and all tags become useless. We can feel the influences of British bands like Anathema, and the distant call of Pink Floyd. We are lost; but we are peaceful.

This first half of the album is followed by its journey back, equally beautiful and full of contrasts. Despite some lengths, Anarchic is one album that has to be experienced from start to finish, alone. It bears darkness and light at the same time, and has a perfect balance between chaos and serenity.

Skagos has this ability to transport us and to create waves of feelings. Their music is taking its time, and it doesn't bother with the concept of "songs". Their invitation is personal, and there is some form of sacred silence necessary to appreciate it fully. It has been a long time since I've experienced such an introspective album, one that plunges you deep into the core. For this I am in awe.

For fans of Panopticon, Ulver, Alda, and Agalloch.

http://theflenser.bandcamp.com/album/anarchic
http://theflenser.com/

White Lake Mountain - Demo (demo)

WHITE LAKE MOUNTAIN - Demo
2013
Indie

Some time ago, I reviewed a band called The Unavowed, from Ottawa. They had released one epic EP called War, that offered the best of heavy, stoner, and crust altogether. When I heard that two of the band members were now in another band called White Lake Mountain, from the same area, I was very curious to hear what it would sound like.

Earlier this Spring, White Lake Mountain posted a four-tracks demo online. This project not only demonstrates that the ex-Unavowed are still rocking hard, but also that there's a new solid stoner rock entity in the National Capital. Along with Chris Mesner on drums and Nick Toone on bass, the band introduces the excellent Joe Hammond and H. Figurine on guitars. Vocal duties are shared by Toone and Hammond, in a heavy rockers style.

Apparently a home recording, this demo has nothing particular about its production. Call it raw, crust, or garage, it's not important when it comes to a demo, as long as it rocks - and this is exactly what this demo does. The four songs display a certain stylistic range, from dirty rock ("Cataclysmic Skies") to stoner doom ("Behemoth"), with equal ease at both ends. On the musicianship level, the two guitars approach is worthy of mention, for example on "When the Sleeper Wakes" (a song that reminds me of Mortification's song "Influence", in a good way).

This demo's song titles tell me something epic is coming our way - let's hope White Lake Mountain doesn't stop there.

www.whitelakemountain.com
https://soundcloud.com/#wlmband

Towards Darkness - Barren

TOWARDS DARKNESS - Barren
2012
Avantgarde Music

Funeral Doom is not a popular style in Canada - quite the opposite -, and bands that follow this path are not only few, but they also are mostly unknown on the underground scene. It's no wonder to see this ultra-specialized branch looking towards an international network. Nonetheless, Canada has some top-notch bands in the genre like Towards Darkness, a quiet band hailing from Montreal.

After a first album released under the moniker The Mass and entitled Towards Darkness, the formation changed its name and released Solemn, a suffocating yet intricating album in 2007. This proved to be an important step in the band's journey, as it started moving towards a different approach, more metal, and darker. This slow descent brings us Barren, five years later. Minimalistic, heavy and coated in a refined production, the four-tracks is a monolithic 55-minutes slice of grandiose desolation. The drum recording is crystal clear, and its decomposed patterns carry all the weigth of the music genre. There are passages of clean guitars, ambiant melancholic melodies that float here and there, but then again most of Barren is made of those heavy clouds of strings that rolls over the desertic landscape. There are no viruosity or technical feat here; just heaviness skimmed to its very bones. The choice to aim for a clean production gives the album an impressive depth, and adds a lot to the sterile looking overall atmosphere.

I like Towards Darkness because of the original path it took. Although it professes funeral doom, it came to it via sludge and bands like Neurosis. Here we find the monolithic guitar riffs, the droning routines, the layers of noise, and the hardcore accent of the vocals. Having said that, the band followed the road to exploration, and their original influences morphed into something else. One specific aspect of their sound, on Barren, is the keyboard. Filling most of the void with various notes and background layers, it seems to be influenced by the richness of finnish funeral doom. The result of this blend makes Barren an album that stands out in the genre.

Like a supergroup, Towards Darkness has impressive musicianship: Nick Richards from Show of Bedlam on drums, Kevin Jones also an ex-Show of Bedlam and ex-Negativa on guitars, Joël Cyr on guitars, and Simon Carignan from Longing for Dawn on keyboards and sound effects. As if it wasn't enough, they had guest guitarists Samuel Dufour from Vengeful and the late Steeve Hurdle from ex-Negativa and ex-Gorguts.

For those who dig the Neurosis influence in them, I would recommend their earlier efforts - but if you like the funeral death edge of Barren, I recommend looking into the equally excellent band Longing for Dawn.

http://www.lastfm.fr/music/Towards+Darkness

Loviatar - Widow's Flame (EP)

LOVIATAR - Widow's Flame EP
2012
Indie

Nested in the small post-hardcore/sludge/doom community of Ottawa, conveniently located mid-way through the Toronto-Montreal corridor where most touring bands travel, Loviatar is making a name for itself as an opening act.

Widow's Flame is the second EP from Loviatar. This time again the production is really good, being recorded at Pebbles Studio by Mike Bond, who also happens to play bass with the band. Interesting enough, Widow's Flame is the second in a series of short EPs released by Loviatar - the third one being expected somewhere in Spring 2013. Like Eternal Sons, the first one, it has a very simple design, with a focus on the clean minimalistic logo, and is housed in a cardboard packaging. This time again, the EP title is a play of words based on the two original songs found on the album, i.e. "Flametongue" and "Widow's Walk". Since these EPs are so short (this one is 11 minutes long), continuity between them contributes to defining the identity of Loviatar.

We find ourselves again in a world of fantasy, where post-metal meets doom, where the songs and texts are epic. The guitars, at the core of the music, have this great rock energy, but also give a lot of space to the other instruments. The bass and drum have this great complicity, and supports the songs with great mastery while staying in the back. The vocals, high and clean, are a gifted trademark of Loviatar, something many heavy and doom bands will envy.

On the other side, there is something I personally find clumsy with the pace of this EP. While the two original songs are excellent, they are accompanied by a cover of Leonard Cohen's "The Partisan". This is a good and interesting rendering, but from an outside perspective I'm questioning its place on the EP: given it has a total of only 11 minutes, and given that the first track is fast and the second is slow, it feels unnecessary to have a third song that brings a completely different direction. All in all, this may not be a big deal since all songs are good and will probably blend in, in the long run, with Loviatar's future discography.

With Widow's Flame, Loviatar is staying very close to what it offered us on Eternal Sons. They added a second guitar player, but so far it has more impact on the live aspect than anything else. Two new songs is not a lot when they are of average lenght, and this EP can't be considered as a landmark or a statement, but it is useful to generate an interest from the local scene.

I'll definitely keep an eye open to see what brings the third EP.

www.loviatardoom.com
http://loviatar.bandcamp.com/

Milanku - Pris à la gorge

MILANKU - Pris à la gorge
2012
D7I Records / Tokyo Jupiter Records / Replenish Records

Milanku is a four-piece band from Montreal. They started in 2006 and released a first album in 2008, Convalescence. More recently, they came out with their second opus, Pris à la gorge. I thought about writing a few words here not only because it's a great album, but also because it will be pressed this Spring on vinyl by none other than the excellent Washington label Replenish Records (Vestiges, Alda, Rituals). The artwork displayed here is the later version.

What is Milanku? The short answer would probably be a francophone post hardcore band. They deliver a quality product, both in terms of composition, texts and production, that helps them standing out immediately. Their music uses many post rock ingredients to express melancholy - especially the little guitar in the background and the minimalistic drumming, as found in "Hypomanie", "La nausée" or "Inhibition". At the same time, they have a clear hardcore and sludge edge, found in the harsh guitar-and-vocals attack of songs like "L'inclination", "Dopamine" or the wall of sound of "La Chute". This is highly melodic, but the melodies are built with repetition and layers of instruments, rather than being delivered easily from one single instrument. The arrangements found on Pris à la gorge are worth mentioning, as they are key to this feeling of being "grasped by the throat" (Pris à la gorge) and swallowed into darkness. For example, the very first song, "La Chute", starts with this very quiet atmosphere built by a clean guitar, a muffled background noise, and a few spoken words that express personal distress. Then, when the guitars kick in, we're completely submerged by a wave of intense melancholic pain. Further into the song, there is a quiet build-up that brings the listener closer into the music, before closing the trap and resuming the song with the same intensity as earlier.

The texts add something powerful to the melancholic feel of the music. Drenched in nostalgy, they either express pain in their hardcore delivery, or intimacy when spoken ("Antalgie", "La nausée").

The production is excellent and contributes to this masterwork. It is far from being raw, but it has a few dirty details left intentionally in the mix, for example: the end of certain chords (noticeable in the end of a few songs), the saturation of the vocals, or the granular distortion of the guitars. All the effects and the arrangements are perfectly blended, and the crystal clear drum-and-bass backbone leave all the space needed for the guitars to create these overwhelming atmospheres.

The first reference that comes to mind is Le Kraken. Not only the two bands started about the same time, but they also share the same vocalist, Guillaume Chamberland. While each other's music genre is not that far apart, there is a clear difference in direction between the two: Le Kraken's songs are shorter, more post-hardcore driven, while Milanku's songs are more complex, more melodic, and use a lot of clean guitars.

Impressive.

http://milanku.bandcamp.com
http://www.storenvy.com/stores/57506-desordre-ordonne
www.replenishrecords.com

Near Grey - Near Grey

NEAR GREY - Near Grey
2012
Indie

Big thick waves of monochromatic acrylic paint. The cover artwork for Montreal's Near Grey expresses perfectly what their music is about: something abstract, atmospheric, and voiceless. We enter the realm of sludge, we connect to an intangible country where musical textures counts more than any kind of groove. But there are no coldness, no evilness, and no negative weight. At the same time, we're nowhere near the light, the warm instruments or the happy radio vibe. The best descriptive could be "near grey", indeed.

The style has grown quite a bit since Neurosis and Isis made it popular. Near Grey plays a slower, instrumental version of sludge/post-metal, without getting too much into shoegaze or post-rock. They keep their distortion on as a background for their music, with only splashes of clean guitars here and there to give it some relief. A few feedbacks, a few keyboard atmosphere, and many guitar effects are additional tools used in the refined production.

This first offering of Near Grey is an EP. Three songs, ranging from 7 to 18 minutes, form the eponymous journey. Despite their duration, the songs never feel too long, nor repetitive; in fact, they progress naturally, taking a left turn on certain occasions, and they leave a lot of space for the guitars sound to die out. The pace of the album is an excellent breathing exercise, taking its time to reach various anonymous inscapes.

Recommended for fans of Three Steps to the Ocean, A Cold Dead Body, Omega Massif, Explosion in the Sky, etc.

http://neargrey.bandcamp.com/