france

There’s likely at least one metal band for everyone who appreciates music pointed in a different direction. Amesoeurs are one of those bands. Joy Division and Peste Noire fans alike can find something to digest here. Never mind properly pronouncing the name or making sense of French lyrics. Amesoeurs translate enough with their meshed black […]

Blut aus Nord have delivered perhaps the prog metal record of the year. This is ironic, given their general categorization as black metal. Then again, this isn’t your big brother’s black metal. Early efforts were requisitely frostbitten, but The Work Which Transforms God transformed the band. Blut aus Nord became an abyss of disharmonic guitars […]

In 10 years, Deathspell Omega has evolved from typical black metal to perhaps metal’s most idiosyncratic sound. Over time, standard minor chords acquired mysterious extensions. 2004’s Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice was the first step outside the box. The next year’s Kénôse plunged into skewed tonalities and bruising percussion, as if Wu-Tang Clan instrumentals went black […]

by Cosmo Lee I never thought I’d hear bands that sounded like Blut aus Nord or Deathspell Omega. Yet Dissociated Human Junction (Panik Terror Musik, 2007) has three, plus BaN themselves. Fortunately, it’s pretty much impossible to copy BaN or DO, so this split is a product of inspiration, not theft. Spain’s Bloodoline turn in […]

by Cosmo Lee Project: Failing Flesh‘s main selling point is probably vocalist Eric Forrest, formerly of Voivod. His time in Voivod is highly underrated; the band lost the nuance it had with original vocalist Snake, but it became heavy as hell. After Voivod, Forrest formed his own cyber-thrash outfit, E-Force. He also linked up with […]

In late 2006 and early 2007, John Darnielle wrote “Thirty Short Poems About My Favorite Black Metal Band.” Of his fans, I’d guess that 90% know him for his indie rock band The Mountain Goats, while 10% know him for his writing on metal, including his cryptically amusing “South Pole Dispatch” column which ends each […]

This album must be played loud, very loud. Goosebumps should pierce surfaces after feeling Monarch?s 2007 release melt from blaring speakers. The French quartet return with their crushing Crucial Blast compilation Dead Men Tell No Tales. This album refurnishes and compiles Monarch?s two previous full-lengths, Speak of the Sea and Die Tonight. A comfortable chair […]

Judging from their sound, Spektr refer to the drug and not the Mescalyne Islands in Vanuatu. On 2006’s The Near Death Experience (which I wrote about here), this shadowy French duo rammed together dark ambient and black metal with jarring jump cuts. It was an intriguingly disruptive, Burroughsian take on an aesthetic that favors drones, […]

Paris’ answer to Eyehategod, Eibon have a new promo CD out. Its two massive tracks total 22 and a half minutes in length. Eibon hammer riffs into the ground with the best of ’em, yet shape them into surprisingly graceful journeys. “Asleep and Threatening” is the more aggressive offering, and is audible on Eibon’s MySpace. […]

This week is French bands week at Invisible Oranges. There is no special occasion, other than a desire to celebrate the country that brought us Juliette Binoche, Daft Punk, and the finest metal scene currently outside of Sweden. Blut aus Nord‘s sound has gotten grumpier over time, a fact reflected in gradually darkening album covers […]