Album: Les Ténèbres Modernes
Genre: Black metal
Year: 2016
Time: 40 min circa
Rating: 84/100
After the majestic Forteresse, here you are another MNQ band! This time I will tell you about Neige et Noirceur ("Snow and Blackness" in French), a solo-project from Candiac (Québec, Canada) of Sion Daus (aka Zifond), who founded it in 2005. His project is very prolific all the more so because the fresher album, "Les Ténèbres Modernes" (released on 24th June 2016 under Sepulchral Productions), is the fifth one of Neige et Noirceur's discography. And I must say already that it is a very ambitious effort both musically and lyrically, also because "Les Ténèbres Modernes" is a concept-album about the hell of WWI and its atrocities.
Said that, this album consist of 10 songs where Neige et Noirceur, strong of the session singer with guttural style Schimaera, shows a very particular black metal because it is raw, atmospheric and generally slow. But it is also characterized by ambient guitars, often lugubre riffs, strong Industrial elements while, throughout the album, there are contextuals war noises. The result of all this is a various album able to range from the slow, hypnotic and estranging opening track "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" to the combative "Battlespirit" (containing not only evocative mid-tempos in 90's Norwegian-style and some good melodies but also ultra-violent blast-beats), or also from the atmospheric and desperate 6 minutes of "La Mécanique de Lucifer" (complete of a strange break with violin and guitar while here the singer is the same Sion Daus, very expressive with his spectral screams and ultra-guttural vocals) to the severe and martial "Ciel d'Acier". But without forgetting that short 2-minutes torture of "Des Spectres", before slow and mechanical, after an apocalyptic mid-tempo in fading away.
But, beware, the tracklist is a bit bizzarre because the even songs, except the aforementioned "Battlespirit", are generally instrumentals. Specifically, "La Saison de Morts" starts with a keyboard intro to evolves in a atmospheric way with ambient guitars; "Post Mortem" has a sad and desolating mood with air raid warning and a classical music's finale; "Felgrau" is terryfying and apocalyptic Industrial-ambient; and finally, the conclusive "Adieux" is an uproar of noises dominated by a female voice talking in German language.
In short, "Les Ténèbres Modernes" is truly an excellent album with a gloomy and inhuman mood and it is strong of tremendous effective songs like "Battlespirit", "La Mécanique de Lucifer" and "Des Spectres", But, at the same time, this is an album very difficult to listen also because it is full of hidden details at first hearing, so I advise you to listen "Les Ténèbres Modernes" with a good pair of headphones. The sole relative flaw comes from the vocals of Schimaera because I prefer Sion Daus, that is more expressive and bloodcurdling than Schimaera. For the rest, congratulations to the MNQ bands, always full of ideas and always able to release albums with very interesting lyrics!
Tracklist:
1 - Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum
2 - Battlespirit
3 - Walpurgis 1917
4 - La Saison des Morts
5 - La Mécanique de Lucifer
6 - Post Mortem
7 - Ciel d'Acier
8 - Felgrau
9 - Des Spectres
10 - Adieux
Line-up:
Schimaera - vocals
Sion Daus - guitars/bass/drums/vocals
Official site: http://www.zimondofin.com/neigeetnoirceur/
Sepulchral Productions: http://www.sepulchralproductions.com/
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