Ni vu, ni connu

Released in 1994, Ni vu, ni connu (EN : Unseen, Unknown) is the debut album of the Quebec thrash metal band Anonymus. Even if it is not the best record from their discography, it is still a great metal album that received critical acclaim during the time of its release. By 1994, thrash metal had been surpassed by groove metal and its popularity was over since the beginning of the decade. The bands that defined the genre in the 80s went through other musical directions in the 90s. Therefore, the arrival of a band like Anonymus, and its eventual success of their debut album, was refreshing for the North American thash metal scene at the time.

Ni vu, ni connu is obviously a 100% Quebecois metal album. All songs are written in a slangy French Canadian language, and they are mostly engaged, witch is something you see a lot in the Quebec musical scene in general. Even if sometimes they lack of strengh and are a little bit clichés, exploited themes are quite diversified : critics of religion (Crémoécrémoépas), horrors of war (Balle d’Or), pollution (Mer Noire), domination (Prosternez-vous), etc. The debut album starts a trend of pun titles that will stand througout the entire career of the band, showing their capacity to play a lot with their native language in songwriting (Amen Toé, Démonomane, Crémoécrémoépas). Even with a French language that the vast majority of the followers of the Encyclopedia would not fully understand, one can tell that the same album written in English would still have been a great record, because the instrumental work still remains great for metal standards.

Sonically, the debut effort of Anonymus seems to be inspired by the technical approach of bands like Voivod, but played out in a more straightforward way. The recurrent song structure on the album is an introductory theme followed by a long instrumental bridge and a comeback to the primary idea. Sometimes, you get a little bit lost in the huge instrumental passages, even if your attention has already been got by the catchy themes introduced on each track. However, a lot of ideas are incorporated within those passages ; the band will come up with some French Canadian rigodon-like melodic lines, but also with a lot of foreign musical influences especially in the melodies of lead guitarist Marco Calliari. Bassist Oscar Souto will also have a lot of presence on the album complementing very well the complex guitar work while having his own parts and solos. Besides, like every Anonymus album, vocal arrangements are great. Oscar Souto and Marco Calliari have two distinguishable voices with different timbres still well balanced between harsh shouted vocal and raspy clean vocals. The tone is clean and everything is quite audible despite being sung in a quite familiar spoken language.

With Ni vu, ni connu, Anonymus made a huge statement by showing what they can do in terms of musicality, technicality and performance. For an Anonymus standard, this album worths a note of 80% because the next albums will improve a lot in terms of arrangements, lyrics and songwriting, but as a metal album, I would give it a note of 85% because it is a very enjoyable record. It has a unique sonic approach while keeping a solid thrash metal root, reminding us the great times of the 80s, without being a diluted copy of it.

Favorite songs : Ni vu, ni connu (Unseen, Unknown), Prosternez-vous (Bow Down to Me), Choisir ou Moisir (To Choose or To Rot), and Cyclope (Cyclops).