What are your thoughts about Les Légion Noires? Do they deserve the glory they get?
I myself think that the black metal acts such as: Belketre,Mütiilation,Torgeist,Vlad Tepes is fantasic.

But the so called "dark ambient" acts like Dzlarv or Brenoritvrezorkre are crap. But I do like Aaekon Keethre (cant spell this) and Moevot.

What is your opinion on this?

I've got Mutiilation's first album "Vampires Of Black Imperial Blood", and it is fantastic. It has that somber, 'wandering' sound that I liken to Burzum, but far rawer.

I've yet to hear any of the rest.

I think Belketre are pretty good, raw as fuck and really hateful but incredibly simplistic. I also like Black Murder for their strange atmosphere and soul piercing melodies, Torgeist for their pure evil in musical form, and Aaron Kethre for their "it really shouldn't work but it's beautiful" material. Most of the rest is shit and the whole movement was just trying too hard to be kvlt, mostly producing material that actually had almost nothing to do with black metal as we know it.

Mutiilation was very good and even the newer albums had some quality to them. Vampires... definitely deserves the status it has.

Vlad Tepes had some really awesome demos and their musicianship was probably the best out of all the groups. Good melodies, good solos, and memorable songs really made them stand out.

Belketre's half of March to the Black Holocaust is some of the most hateful music I've ever heard, yet sombre in a way as well.

Torgeist is probably my least favorite of the main bands, but those two demos, especially Devoted to Satan, showed that they had much promise.

All those little one-off projects were mostly crap, but there are some jewels if you search hard enough.

The LLN doesn't exactly receive "glory" anymore, and haven't since around 2005. The mystery (and, by extension, the novelty) of the LLN projects has mostly diminished now that there's quite a bit of information about them available online.

Most people are a lot more realistic about the artists' quality now - they'll disregard most of the LLN projects as trash, but then they'll like Mutiilation and Vlad Tepes and then some random other band like Brenoritvrezorkre or Aakon Keetreh. I personally think Vagezaryavtre were the best, or at least the most interesting...quite the brilliant concept they had going but it's not exactly executed properly.

I think that they do still deserve glory. Most of their projects are good.

Wow, an LLN topic...I don't believe we've had one of those for a while!

I thought the mystique created around the group was pretty cool actually, and all done simply by remaining silent and/or making cryptic statements, not doing interviews, etc. There were some rumours around in the 90s but I really have no idea if they were started by the bands themselves or what...

Anyway, Vlad Tepes really rocks, which might strike some as being anti-cult or something, but that couldn't be further from the truth. A really cool mixture of the more energetic Celtic Frost/Bathory sound with something a bit more melancholy....great riffs in songs like "Under the Carpathian Yolk" that put a huge grin on my face.

I really like early Mutiilation as well...those moaning guitar riffs sound very ...ill, for want of a better description. Was very disappointed with Sorrow Galaxies....in fact I'd much rather listen to Black Milennium, I think.

Most of the stuff is from decent to very good, Torgeist being my favourite. Whoever the fuck thinks only reason LLN got popular was their pretentious image/attitude, should stop listening to black metal immediately.

Isn't this the reason a lot of black metal gets popular though? The "cult of personality" aspect? Every time some group has an air of mystery and some members pull some Satanic antics like burning churches, torturing animals, or "recording albums in a castle while doing drugs and torturing prostitutes," a bunch of people latch onto the hype more than the music. Look at Velvet Cacoon for example, as soon as they debunked their own self-made rumors about being eco-terrorists and having tons of obscure albums and living in the forest developing new weird instruments, they lost 90% of their fanbase.

LLN had some good projects, of which I would pick Mutiilation, Belketre, Vlad Tepes, Seviss, and Moevot as my tops, but a lot of it was also bland, typical lo-fi black metal. If it WASN'T for the hype surrounding it, if it was just some nameless demo tape of equal or greater quality from some other random band from France with some other guy who didn't have any legend behind his name, it wouldn't have the same "kvlt" appeal as the LLN bands.

What would you say the best album or demos would be from some of these bands? Im basically wondering which ones to look for to obtain. Thanks

For me personally: Mutiilation, Vlad Tepes, Belketre/Zelda/Chapel of Ghouls, Black Murder, Seviss, Vermeth, and Moevot. Torgeist and Brenoritvrezorkre are also pretty well-liked, although I don't see the big deal about either. Worth checking out to decide for yourself. As for actual releases, all from those bands range from decent to excellent.

You mean, physically obtain? Because unless you're talking about one of the more famous bands like Mutiilation or Vlad Tepes, that's not going to happen.

It is essential to hear the 2008 Drakkar re-releases of Torgeist's demos - the audio was poorly transferred for the Black Legions Metal split, and a lot of rips of them are simply terrible. If the guitars don't have tons of bite to them, then it's probably a bad rip.

One interesting aspect of hunting down LLN stuff has been finding better quality rips, as by the time most people heard any of the demo tapes, they were many generations removed from the originals, thus the sound quality was even poorer. Many rips found online are far from the best that can be found.

People sleep on Torgiest. That band had some nasty groove for a bm band. Them and Mutiilation are my favorites. Vlad Tepes has its moments, but never struck me the same way. As many have said, those dark ambient or whatever projects are crap, but that's nothing new.


Cool vibe, a rare thing now with the internet. Hopefully idiots aren't still paying too much for bootlegs of LLN... one of the few time i'll advocate downloading as that stuff's hard to come by legitimately.

No, he wasn't. He did not play in any of those bands to my knowledge (except Mütiilation, but they weren't part of the Black Legions any more from 1996 on), he only released some of their material. He is also suspected of contributing to some Black Legion bootlegs.

Anyway as I said, post-1996 Mütiilation has little to do with this topic.

I think Vlad Tepes were one of the greatest French bands. They managed to mix an epic feeling with a raw '1st wave' vibe and some dissonant, vicious riffs, always keeping a lo-fi production standard which reinforced the atmosphere.

While Vlad Tepes was melancholic and epic, Belkètre sounded purely dark, depressing and evil. The Vlad Tepes / Belkètre split is one of the best French recordings ever. Both bands share the same approximative technique and lo-fi production.

The other bands are less interesting in my opinion, they're all side-projects of the same 2 or 3 musicians.

The Black Legions were famous for creating their own language (probably some distorted French words which were only used in the songtitles), which enhanced their mysterious aura.

Unfortunately, a lot of recent uninspired bands copy this trend by using stupid meaningless band/nicknames like kzfrrèrvrmr. This trend is pathetic. I don't support bands who copy the trademarks of others.

^You wouldn't say that the LLN bands pretty much copied their whole gimmick from the early Norweigan scene?

No, I wouldn't say that. The Black Legions were musically inspired by the Norwegian second wave, of course, but they had their own distinctive sound. Do you think Vlad Tepes sounds like a Burzum-clone, or Belkètre like a Mayhem-clone? Early Mütiilation was very original as well.

The originality of the Black Legions comes from their typical dissonant riffing, which was very uncommon in the 1st half of the nineties (except in a couple of songs from Burzum and Mayhem). They also invented the idea of creating their own language (even if it probably wasn't a genuine language), nobody had ever done that before in the metal scene as far as I know. Vikernes had only took words from the langage invented by JRR Tolkien.

I still maintain that the French black metal scene has its own identity and was very creative in the earliest years. Only few countries can pride themselves of possessing such a scene: Poland, Germany, Greece, Sweden and Russia to a lesser extent...

I also despise bands who copy the visuals of the Black Legions, such as strange/occult symbols or black & white cut 'n paste pictures with the same image effect (for example, Satanic Warmaster or the first Peste Noire album reissue).

It sounds like you depsise bands that use aspects of LLN asthetics but above you dismiss almost entirely the fact that LLN essentially aped Norweigan black metal in the most noticeable and, arguably, important way one can copy a musical act; by mimicking their actual music. Copgnitive dissonance to me.

Either way, its not a very important thing to me, whether any aspect of any item is orignial.

Did you read my post above? I explained which was the Black Legions' innovation in comparison to their Norwegian inspirators.

The main bands and their official releases deserve all the glory they get. But what should be ignored completely is the countless sub-legions of side-projects which were never really meant to be spreaded (except somebody decided do it).

Releases like Vampires of Black Imperial Blood, Remains of a Ruined Dead Cursed Soul, War Funeral March and the March to the Black Holocaust split are some of the best black metal from France ever.

anyone know where to get decent boot tapes for cheap?

March to the Black Holocaust is one of my favorites black metal releases, and certainly one of my favorites metal releases from France as well. Vlad Tepes, Belkètre, Torgeist, Mütiilation, all deserve their glory despite their detractor claiming they are kvlt bullshit.

People look at the countless LLN projects that are obvious joke bands/stuff that wasn't intented for an audience, and take them at face value, and use these examples to take a shit on the LLN as a whole

Mutiilation created some timeless and perfect black metal. Just listen to "Remains of a Dead, Ruined, Cursed Soul". Painfully depressive music made by some fucked up individuals. Vlad Tepes and Belketre has made some good contributions

cut n' pasting predates metal, bro. Much more of a punk thing then anything else. Strange occult shit is as old as metal itself so I don't see how LLN were really trailblazing in that regard. Give them their stupid kooky language, awful production, and attention to being impossible to track down, but most Vlad Tepes releases look as generic as every 2nd wave/post 2nd wave band could (shirtless dudes with corpse pain standing like idiots).

Completely disagree. Do you know any metal band that used the cut & paste technique in their visuals before the Black Legions did (apart from crossover bands like Discharge)?

Deathcrush for one, as with some of their demos. As well as many of the Norwegian acts. Just like how it's been a go to for punks, it's cheap, and easy to do yourself. Forest is My Throne demo tape's a shitty photo xeroxed onto the insert. Enslaved, etc. many of that scene.

You could argue Carcass as that's all hand done collage art on a few of their albums, cut and pasted.

Terrorizer's split with Nausea, some early Extreme Noise Terror splits/ep, as I'm sure lots of other early grindcore acts.

Mantas/death demos (speicifcally Mantas's Death by Metal one with a xerox of the band on the front)

etc
etc

Well, yes, I read it; hence my reply to you.

I do think that LLN material had a different atmosphere to the Norweigans, more violent and 'evil' if I may say. Still derivative but thats not always bad...I have a fair difficulty with the drumming on particularly Vlad Tepes material which is actually painful.

The LLN band I have the most experience with is Mutiilation. I have Remains of a Ruined... and I intend to get Vampires of... soon enough. Those vocals are amazing.

As for other bands, I've briefly scanned through Vlad Tepes and Belketre, but I feel like giving them another look now that this thread has come up. Might also give my Mutiilation CD a spin too, I haven't listened to that for a while now.

People wanting to get Mutiilation albums can get them from either Hell's Headbangers or Dark Adversary Records, the latter providing official re-releases of the albums. If only they would re-release Hail Sathanas We Are The Black Legions.

This as well for me. Seeking cheap boot/dub copies with xerox/cover with better quality than mp3 rips on the internet.

I have some okay quality dubs of a few equally rare black metal tapes that can be dubbed, if this gives any incentive. As well as other musics. I just have to get a new tpe deck to dub them from.

Hail Satanas.. was actually officially re-released on CD by Nightmare Productions, I've got a copy and its no bootleg.

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=50674&ev=mb

I found some in Teutonic Satan distro. Totally reliable too.

The drumming in Belketre and Vlad Tepes is sometimes a bit irregular, but it's a minor flaw.

The demo stages of most of the LLN bands showed that the drums were being learned by whoever was playing them, especially Vlad Tepes, who originally had a drummer but parted ways with him and then one of the other guys started learning drums. By the time they got around to "proper" releases, he had improved a lot. Still, I enjoy the music, and hearing songs over a few demos where they improved is always interesting. Mutiilation's drumming was fairly simple, but competent. Most of the projects seemed to have drums handled by musicians who weren't very experienced with them, and I'm pretty sure not all of them owned drum kits, which is part of why they would get together to record projects.

Torgeist had by far the best drummer in the LLN - I love the way he does a simple blasting buildup towards the end of "Evil Prevails". The snare-kick-kick blast there reminds me of Morbid Angel, something unsurprising considering two of his bandmates had earlier been in a band called Chapel of Ghoulds, despite later declaring a hate of death metal.

well said dude. "Devoted to Satan's" got such a good groove.

Is it only me who fucking loves Torgeist- Devoted to satan?

I don't know. They always tried so hard to be evil and mysterious that it actually became kind of laughable. I know this tends to be a general trait of black metal, but come on... Dark Wizzard of Silence?

did a post awhile back about them...


http://perpetualstrifemusic.blogspot.com/2011/08/devoted-to-satan-look-back-at-everyones.html

Nothing new for you guys, but I figure most people don't know shit about the LLN

Emailed at least a year or two ago with no response, checked the page, and he said most did not include covers anyway.