Misanthrope(s)

Goddam, France; your beautiful country is perhaps creating some of the best modern metal pieces being released in the world. From Deathspell Omega to Regarde Les Tomber, there's too much to modern metal being released now that should be considered classic eventually.

Misanthrope(s) is no exception. It is a masterpiece of a hateful album, with a cover illustrating one thing; everything on here is in your fucking face, and there's no prisoners being taken! The guitars are crunchy, raw, and hit that "brown note" perfectly. Both guitars explode out of both left and right speaker with this holy fucking shit awesome wall of sound. Yet simultaneously, it manages to employ some incredibly haunting, melancholic, and downright beautiful riffing. The overall effect of employing both these qualities is that the entire fucking album feels like a goddam earthquake. You're moving through these each and every one of these riffs that have their own incredibly expressive personality, but at the same time they're so fucking in your face due to a wall-of-sound production that the whole album just becomes incredibly personable.

There's some obvious Converge influence with not only the tone of the guitars, but the Vocals (and the album cover... I'm thinking Jane Doe?). They're high pitch, high gain, but straightforward shrieks that blend perfectly with the rest of the music. I like it when the vocals are blended into the sound, as opposed to having them louder than the mix and disrupting the melodies of the guitar.

Great album by a great band.