Royaume des ombres

Royaume des ombres, Borgne's third and final release through Sepulchral Records, shows this band fully matured with an album stronger than anything they've done before. Bornyhake and his live crew come together on this album to make some very haunting industrial black metal. While it is less dynamic than Entraves de l'âme, the album ends up being stronger on the whole just due to simple songwriting and a stronger atmosphere.

Bornyhake composed lengthier songs for this album ranging between eight to twelve minutes. During this duration, the spacey ominous atmosphere is given ample room to develop. The tracks are mostly mid-paced with the exceptions being the somewhat faster "Only the Dead Can Be Heard", the slower "All These Screams Through Me", and a few explosive blast beat sections scattered elsewhere on the other songs. While the songs being arranged this way do get occasionally monotonous, the cold and dark tone is consistent throughout the album that the monotony is just hard to notice.

Borgne have been using negative emotions as a theme for their music since their inception. Lyrically, Royaume des ombres is an improvement over the angsty passages on Entraves de l'âme. The misanthropy is still present and at times the hatred seems to be very personal, particularly on "The Last Thing You Will See", but the way it's presented is much better. The programmed drums, the multilayered harsh vocals, the prominent lead guitar, and especially the choir-like keyboards all make this album extremely unsettling and the feeling of antipathy just seems very at home on this album.

There's some things that could have been improved such as the song duration. Most of the tracks could afford to have a minute or two shaved off, and I especially don't get why the intro needed to be five minutes long. As it is, Royaume des ombres is a very solid album that's worth checking out if you're into super atmospheric black metal. Bornyhake and company definitely understand how to execute their ideas and I'm very eager now to see how they present themselves in a live setting.

As fans of the genre know, or ought to know, black metal can be a very diverse style of music. Of course we have the "original" Norwegian style, but we must acknowledge raw black metal, NSBM, Slavic black metal, DSBM, as well as crossover genres innumerable. There are a few things that most black metal has in common, though, and these are shrieked vocals, blast beats, tremolo picking, clean/choir vocals, and keyboards, all in aid of creating that illusive ominous atmosphere that we all search for.

The strange thing is that one very rarely comes across a black metal album that has all of these archetypes and comes across as legitimate, rather than contrived. I am pleased to say, however, that Borgne's most recent offering (as of February 2015) is one of these rare pieces.

There is nothing that this album lacks. The atmosphere is incredible throughout, though a high point can be found toward the end of All These Screams Through Me, and guitar work is consistent. The picking isn't overly technical, in fact it's very rarely anything more than simple riffing and chaotic chords jumbled together, but again, this is all in aid of the creation of a truly devastating atmosphere. Overall, I'd say that this album has the feel of an early black metal album, but benefits from better composition. The band's sole member seems to have thought things out very well, and researched his genre for a long, long time before producing this piece.

I say this because the music is rather predictable at times. Now, this does result in increase emphasis on the atmosphere rather than technicals or any particular instrument, but if you're listening to this album to be blown away by creativity, you may be somewhat disappointed. Another minor shortcoming is that there are a places, here and there, where the music could be more evil and devastating, but seems to choose a chord progression that is almost hopeful. I'm not quite sure how to put it.

None of this should distract from the fact that this is an extremely well rounded and well composed piece of black metal artwork. It's good for veterans of the genre as well as newcomers looking to expand their tastes, so I am proud to rate it 92 out of 100, and I look forward to more work from Borgne in the future.

Borgne is a Swiss black metal project that adds chaotic orchestrations and industrial elements to misanthropic black metal. Being the sole project of black metal musician Ormenos, this project goes farther than the average industrial or ambient black metal band. While electronic enthusiasts in the black metal scene either tend to stick with ambient or industrial infused metal, Borgnerather goes with both and then has them collide with some orchestral elements to make this one hell of a furious, yet solemn record.

On this disc one will immediately notice a mild use of delay-laden, atmospheric synths with robotic drumming and futuristic sampling filling the spaces in between (these being the ambient and industrial influences mentioned). Not only that, but with the addition of intimidating orchestrations (but not quite what I’d call symphonies) to the ambient/industrial background, the foreboding and sinister black metal riffs are given a hellish strength, which manages to mix together tastefully with the soul enveloping traits of ambient and the robotic violence of industrial. But while there is apparent electronic elements on this record, Borgne doesn’t have a problem breaking out of these spaces and focusing more on the riffs, which is somewhat uncommon for these types of bands.

The general atmosphere of this record is pretty unsettling and hateful. It’s full of lyrics about how despicable and self indulgent society is and dreaming of the destruction of it all. And while this is somewhat typical black metal affair, it’s a lot more obvious and focused on then the likes of Mayhem or 1349. It’s also where things get a little rough, as some of the lyrics come off as cheesy and underwhelming, especially when in some of the chorus’s. But there are also some pretty good lines and smacks against the weak and ignorant, so it makes up for it most of the time. Despite the amount of futuristic elements that are present, “Royaume des Ombres” does use a lot of the more classic black metal aesthetics. Elements such as lower quality production, treble-heavy guitar tones, croaked/screeched vocals and evil or melancholic melodies are integral to the sound of “Royaume des Ombres” and as such,the record sounds a lot more older than it really is, but in a good way.

Together the record is pretty gnarly and hellish, sounding a lot like the musicial equivalent to the kingdom of Hell rising from the cracks of the Earth and everything falling to fiery ruin. To put it simply, the music is chaotic, sinister and evil. These are then enhanced greatly by the ambient and industrial genres way with atmosphere. So this record has little flaw, it’s got some cheesy lyrics but in the end that’s my only gripe with it. It really incorporates so many different interesting elements from all over black metal, yet still retaining a certain European classic air to it. It’s mean and angry, yet there are enough expressive, slower paced bits that really have you connecting on more than just rage and hatred.

[Originally written as Adam Korchok for AXIS OF METAL http://axisofmetal.com/2012/06/borgne-royaume-des-ombres-review/]