Forteresse – “La Lame du Passé”
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Back in late April of this year, I went to a show in the basement of Santos Party House in Manhattan, headlined by French black metal kvltists Celestia (an insanely rare occurrence; the last time the band played on American soil was 2009, when they scheduled exactly one U.S. performance). Opening for Celestia was Quebecois band Forteresse, whom I did not know at the time, but most of whose set I caught that night.
I wound up totally entranced by Forteresse’s ambient black metal—it was buzzy and raw, an ethereal atmospheric drone with splashes of melody. The band’s frontman, Athros, would go into a sort of meditative trance for extended periods when he wasn’t singing. I was slowly drawn in, and by the conclusion of their set, I had been totally captivated and captured. (After that, I found Celestia to be pretty flat and uninteresting by comparison.)
The Forteresse appearance was even rarer than that of Celestia—the six North American dates shared by the two bands were the first and only of Forteresse’s young career. Forteresse are part of the movement known as “Métal Noir Québécois” (which is also the name of the band’s 2006 debut LP), and their subgenre is referred to as “Patriotic Black Metal”. As such, it’s important, apparently, to state clearly that Forteresse are Quebecois, not Canadian; as was pointed out in a 2009 entry on the Black Metal War blog, “Their songs are about patriots fighting for freedom against Canada, so they are not Canadian patriots, but Québecers”.
On some level, this reminds me of the Odinism embraced by Varg Vikernes—it’s a preexisting subculture trying to wrest some national identity (and separate themselves) from the more recently entrenched dominant culture; while Varg sings only in Norwegian, Forteresse sing only in French. The comparison is doubly apt, because the music of Forteresse bears a strong resemblance to that of Burzum, especially the music produced by Varg on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosofem: It’s harsh and raw and repetitive and quite beautiful. It has a deep undercurrent of melody below waves of guitars and frantic drums. It is music of wilderness, of winter.
Forteresse are now on the eve of releasing their fourth full-length LP, Crépuscule d’Octobre (which translates, I think, as “Twilight of October”). Invisible Oranges and Sepulchural Productions are premiering “La Lame du Passé” (en anglais, if my Google-translation is correct: “The Blade of the Past”). The new album has moved away, somewhat, from the band’s ambient beginnings, into a more aggressive territory; Crépuscule d’Octobre is notably muscular and propulsive. “La Lame du Passé” opens with a folksy fiddle (which plays what becomes a recurring melodic leitmotif on Crépuscule d’Octobre), which is quickly obliterated by the band’s storming might: a hail of guitars and drums and Athros’ violent battle cry. And in that chaos and fury, it is impossible to not be carried away, not get lost.
—Mike Nelson
BUY CRÉPUSCULE D’OCTOBRE
Forteresse at Santos Party House, NYC, April 29, 2011. Photo by Wyatt Marshall.
Great post. This is what I love about IO: finding something new, something I’d have never found on my own, and having that new thing be awesome.
That album art totally belongs on a Belgian Witbier, btw.
I don’t know what Forteresse takes “patriotic” to mean, but the notion of an independent Quebec within Canada is nowhere near outside of the mainstream as Vikerne or Odinism. Until last year, the Bloc Québécois, a party whose main goal is the promotion of Quebec sovereignty, was a major political party in Canada. Quebec also has a vibrant music scene that is on the whole separate from the rest of the Canadian music scene, and their bands sing predominantly in French (which is one of Canada’s two national languages, anyway). Some have achieved more national (or even international) recognition: good examples are Karkwa and Malajube, who both play a fantastic brand of uniquely Quebecois indie rock. So it’s probably important to note that a Quebecois identity, separate from a Canadian identity, is far from a subculture.
Nick, thanks for clarifying. I admittedly don’t know much about Canadian culture and the Quebecois/Canadian split. I certainly didn’t mean to imply any form of fascist ideology here, I was merely saying that what little I had read about Forteresse’s patriotism reminded me in some nebulous fashion of Varg’s Odinism. But I’d be quite happy to have you guys discuss this at length here and educate me. I’m a big fan of the music, and for that matter, of Quebec.
And subculture was definitely the wrong choice of word. I won’t change it in the text above, because to do so would be to erase my mistake and detract from your thoughtful response to it, but I will certainly recant and apologize.
I certainly didn’t think you were implying a fascist ideology, and wasn’t offended at all. That being said, I’m not as well educated about the issue as I should be as a non-Quebecois Canadian. I was just thinking that a clarification would recontextualize the music as coming from a different place than Burzum. Quebec is also Canada’s second most populous province, which means it has quite a lot of political clout. As a result, among other things, French and English are both official languages of Canada at a federal level. There are lots of laws designed to maintain the equality of the two languages: for example, all food has to be labeled in both languages. Wikipedia seems to have a very extensive discussion of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada. There’s also a very long article about the Quebec sovereignty movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_sovereignty_movement.
That being said, I’m not sure how much of this thought makes its way into Forteresse’s music. I’m also a fan of the Quebecois black metal scene, so it’s really great to see some exposure here! Sepulchural Productions has some great Quebecois bands on its roster, aside from Forteresse: Gris, Sombre Forets, and Miserere Luminis to name a few.
I LOVE Gris. Wonderful band. (And Forteresse ain’t too shabby, either!)
That was an incredible show, though I would hardly agree that Celestia was uninteresting by comparison. There was something gloriously monolithic and impenetrable about that Forteresse performance, but I really, really dug the Celestia set – especially the songs off of Archanae Perfectii (sp?). Those renditions really brought force and energy to already-great songs (I’d had the tape on constant rotation for months beforehand). Flat and uninteresting is the last thing I would call that show.
Maybe I’m being too harsh. I just remember being caught off guard and blown away by Forteresse and less so by Celestia. It was definitely exciting to see them, though, even if they never really transported me the way Forteresse did.
You are spot on about Forteresse in NYC. They blew Celestia away, who I thought was mediocre compared to their album work. To be fair though, Forteresse is my favorite band of the too. I actually have copies of their LP in my shop and am going to see them in Quebec at Messe des Morts next weekend. I cannot wait.
”The new album has moved away, somewhat, from the band’s ambient beginnings, into a more aggressive territory”
If I can correct something, Forteresse’s first album (Métal Noir Québécois) was as aggressive and destructive as Crepuscule d’Octobre. They became more and more ambient after that.
I would qualify this as making a ”come back to the roots”.
love fortresse and this new song does not disappoint.
“On some level, this reminds me of the Odinism embraced by Varg Vikernes—it’s a preexisting subculture trying to wrest some national identity (and separate themselves) from the more recently entrenched dominant culture; while Varg sings only in Norwegian, Forteresse sing only in French.”
As a Québécois, I might as well offer our perspective. The nationhood of Québec is by no means an arcane notion. It’s reflected in our provincial laws, our culture, everything else. When I first returned to Montréal after spending years in the rest of Canada, I felt like I was in a different country, half-way between Europe and New England.
Under the current government, which is trying to strong-arm the provinces into accepting destructive, costly and quixotic laws, Québécois sovereignism is becoming stronger and I’m pretty sure a “yes” vote would pass if we had a referendum this year. If Forteresse can in any way be considered radical, it’s because there’s a certain violent aspect to the way they choose to celebrate nationalism. They’re focusing on the armed Patriotes factions of the 1830s. Those guys are still folk heroes, as is reflected in the fact that you’ll see the Henri Julien version of the Patriote flag (my profile icon) everywhere, but generally when celebrating them we refrain from the “blood in the streets” imagery.
I saw Forteresse play with Celestia in Montreal several months ago, and Celestica were very poor on the night. Forteresse were better, though I view the Metal Noir Quebécois ”movement” with an acre of salt. Equipping your band with the trappings and aesthetics of your local region’s revolutionary history seems to be common practice for Black Metal bands and it just seems a bit contrived in this instance, a chance to seize a region’s history and inject it into your group in a hope to individualize it. The likes of Drudkh have done it successfully and I detect their influence in the art too, but the music above would be dismissed as pretty average stuff if they had not done so. It’s certainly not bad, but it is breaking zero new ground and is decidedly average to these ears. Artwork brings to mind a Unibroue beer, that’s for sure!