Verglapolis

Man, Neige et Noirceur really lost me here. I'm really at a loss at how they went from the last album to what we have here. Their previous album Les Tenebres Modernes was a well done concept album about WWI. There were awesome riffs, well thought-out strong structures, the whole package. Verglapolis is largely demo-ish drone/dark ambient stuff with structureless DSBM wandering. The regression here is just baffling, we have what can be one the most interesting one man black metal bands and we're left with an album where nothing really happens.

The album starts with 5 minutes of drone/dark ambient. There's some decent tones but it just drags on and ends up feeling like ten minutes. This is very indicative of the album as a whole. I could be wrong about this as the droning dark ambient stuff ends up feeling twice as long as it is, but it seems like there's as much of that as actual black metal in Verglapolis. There's a fair amount of half black metal, half droning shit. "Nordet, Les Premieres Neiges" is basically just drone with some half as tremolo occasionally coming in and shitty DSBM groans without any drums. Real tedious shit. A lot of the black metal adds dissonance to non-riffs. It just unpleasantly sort of sits there haphazardly without anything really happening.

Verglapolis has exactly one highlight. After two and a half minutes of stock dark ambient keys (eventually joined by conceited growl-narration), we get some legit Quebecois black metal. It's very indicative of the scene as a whole - icy to the core, vaguely melodic, vaguely depressive. However, if anything having one good song actually makes the rest of the album even more frustrating. As for low points, the drum machine deserves a mention. A lot of the black metal is inexplicably lacking drumming, but when it's there you get a lot of the cold mechanical clanking as the previous album. While it made perfect sense in a WWI concept album with industrial undertones, it's not fitting at all here. Another low point would be album closer "Ruines Electriques". It's your average industrial dark ambient fare and it would have been fine for two minutes. However we get twelve fucking minutes of it. Putting a dozen fucking minutes of whatever dark ambient at the end of an already trying album is the final nail in the coffin.

Neige et Noirceur seems to do best with history-based concept albums. La Seigneurie des Loups is an incredible homage to Spiritus's storied home province. The aforementioned WWI album transforms the band's sound to mirror the conflict. Verglapolis is just kind of . . . there. The album is riddled with aimless dark ambient and drone and the majority of the black metal seems like it was hobbled together on a whim. There's something alarmingly bedroomish about this. Neige et Noirceur have their moments, but Vergapolis is a hard miss.