Chants de bataille

Chants De Bataille (Chants Of Battle or Battle Chant, see French ain't that hard) is simply an amazing piece of work. I found out about this band by luck, some people were mentioning bands from France that are really good. Belenos was one of the names mentioned, I decided to download their music first to get ahold of they sound like. This was before I realized that their music on CD or MP3 format are both equally difficult to find. This music just blew me away when I heard it the first time.

There are 14 songs, all the even numbered titles are full length songs while the odd numbered ones are usually 1 minute interludes or "chants". Now I know one mentioned that he found it annoying because one interlude is enough for an album. I disagree, for something like this I find it to enhance the atmosphere even more! This is a combination of Pagan Black Metal with Celtic overtones, there's definitely a "battle" feel to the songs. The interludes just give a pause and release from all the tension in the full length songs.

Everything here is played to perfection, the drums are just brilliant, the guitars drone along perfectly and Loic Cellier's voice just cries of war! I'm not the biggest Pagan Black Metal fan, (I generally prefer raw low production black metal) but this is just perfect music and it can't be dismissed by any fan of good black metal music, whether it's Black, Viking, Pagan or NSBM. The songs are played with such speed, cohesiveness and melodic aggression, all at the same time and that's the stuff only great Black metal bands can pull off. These guys have made me a big fan, now I have to hear more of their stuff and hopefully they make it a little easier to obtain. Do not miss out on this band, they are terribly underrated.