 |
8.6/10 Roberto
BELENOS - Chemins de Souffrance - CD - Northern Silence Production - 2007
|
review by: Roberto Martinelli
Black metal fans are all well-versed in the existence of one-man bands. It’s to the extent that it’s become a pseudo-genre upon itself: the musicianship tends to be decent at best (particularly if the dude also plays the drums), and there’s a heavy focus on "atmosphere" to fill in the gaps of technical proficiency. And that’s cool.
Belenos is way different. It’s sole member, Loic Cellier, plays all the core metal instruments, and plays them to a very high degree of skill. It’s like he must have dedicated himself to being a one-man black metal band ever since his pre-school days when adults would ask what he wanted to be when he grew up. There’s no doubt Cellier must have come out of the womb, inverted, and with horns raised.
Belenos’ music is a tight blur of black metal that draws much of its ideological — and therefore musical — inspiration from Paganism. (Belenos himself was one of the Gallic pantheon’s primary gods.) As such, Chemins de Souffrance’s songs are aggressive and proud hymns of worship to fantastical, culturally ancient times.
Practically, this translates to dense, high-speed melodies driven by blastbeats, and healthy doses of gang Pagan / Viking background choruses, that bring to mind another brilliant Francophone one-man project, Mirrorthrone. Wisely, Cellier doesn’t pace his music at full-blast all the time, and includes some time for reflection during ambient breakdowns with an almost brittle, shifting, shimmering guitar tonality, that remind of the foremost one-man black metal band of them all, Burzum, from the quintessential Filosofem album.
Chemins de Souffrance nails a wonderful mix of intensity, control, and stirring cultural pride within a scathing black metal context. Wonderful. (8.6/10)
|
|
|
|
All related articles (interviews, live, from the vault)
| |
|
|
