Eminence

Ha! Like many others I was taken in by Passéisme's name, the front-cover artwork of the band's debut album and that album's title too, not to mention the trio's manic and exuberant performance from start to finish on songs of dizzying complexity, packed as they are with riffs and often rising to heights of grandeur, and so I wrote these guys off as yet another wacky and deranged French black metal bunch. No, mes amis, despite their love of European / French Fin-de-siècle culture of the late 19th / early 20th centuries with its obsessions with decline and decay, and deference to French BM inspirations such as Véhémence and Sühnopfer, the Passéisme musicians hail from Nizhny Novgorod, a city some 3,000 km away in the heart of European Russia. Led by vocalist / bassist Konstantin Korolev, who by day is a translator (he translated some of Arthur Rimbaud's poetry to include as lyrics in some of the songs on "Eminence"), Passéisme is a young band formed in 2019 though all three members have been or still are members of death metallers Wombripper which formed back in 2012.

The music is dense and intricate, especially when played so fast as these guys do, with near-constant changes in pace, beats, rhythm and riffs, and the riffs sounding quite complicated on tracks like "Chant for Harvest". At least the production is very clear, giving the music a polished sound so that all instruments and background effects can be heard clearly. The blast-beat drumming seems thin and often clicky compared to the rest of the music. What distinguishes Passéisme most of all is the hollering near-death metal vocal approach adopted by Korolev which adds a rough punk edge to the band's music; this might not endear Passéisme to a lot of fans of French mediaeval BM and compared to the music the shouty approach lacks the subtlety needed to complement the drama and epic nature of the riffs in most songs. At the very least the vocals sound desperate and provide a tonal contrast with the clear, sharp guitar tones with their grinding edge, but as the album continues and especially on the last few tracks the vocals can be a tiresome distraction from the music.

While the album is consistent and technically strong, the songs on the early half of the album go so fast that many of their details are easily missed and repeat hearings are necessary to appreciate their qualities. This is where Korolev's vocals can become really irritating each time you need to replay the album. The best music comes in the last three tracks which are the most varied, including as they do some beautiful acoustic melodies played on folk-like stringed and woodwind instruments and sometimes also featuring a slower pace and more relaxed music. With a slower pace the rousing melodies at last get their moment to shine with all their inherent martial drama and intense emotion.

If they can turn down the speedometer a notch and perhaps consider varying their vocal style, Passéisme could well be unstoppable in their march to French ... er, Russian underground black metal domination. The musicians' song-writing and playing skills are good and their energy and enthusiasm show ambition in abundance.

With the emergence of Ultra Silvum and Sühnopfer, Ungfell’s newfound mojo on their latest album ‘Es Grauet’, and now this slab of noise from the Russian outfit known as Passeisme, I’m calling it, we’re seeing a new wave of highly melodic riff based black metal. But unlike the first wave in the 90s from Sacramentum, Dawn, and Vinterland et al., the characters making up this new generation seem fixated on sonic density. Gone are the broad sweeping narratives of old, formed of elongated melodic threads. Today the aim is to create a rush of momentary micro riffs that sweep by in a blaze of speed and excitement. It’s not that one approach is inherently superior (although ‘Far Away from the Sun’ will remain a genre benchmark), it’s just that the modern approach is less obviously narrative in structure owing to its fixation on the present moment, dispensing of riffs as quickly as they are introduced. But as each track progresses there is a cumulative affect that could be called a narrative.

On their debut album ‘Eminence’, Passeisme’s approach is intense even by the standards of the genre. Everything is kept in a state of fraught high-drama. From the strained melodic intricacies inherent to the medieval inflections couched within riffs that are already choppy and challenging to the follow closely. To the oddly guttural, hardcore vocalisations that lend each piece an expressive tension, as if the messages conveyed are of the upmost urgency. To the drums, that offer a non-stop cavalcade of blast-beats and shifting fills, giving the impression that the very foundations of this music were built on a highly unstable fault line. The bass thunders away alongside the drums, adopting a slightly distorted tone which works well as an acting rhythm guitar. A necessary choice in this context given that both guitar lines stick to the higher end, weaving complex contrapuntal dances of tremolo picked riffs.

And that’s really what Passeisme offer for the majority ‘Eminence’. A taught, dense, fast-paced rush of musical information without let up. The guitar lines race through each moment, as if desperate to reach their cadence, with drums egging them on at every turn. Vocals bellow away above this cacophony. The choice to adopt a gruff, hardcore style may seem ill fitting on paper, but it serves to simultaneously heighten the intensity whilst keeping things grounded in a human vulnerability. This colouring of melodrama also fits the French decadence of the lyrical concepts well.

The music does eventually calm down with the penultimate track ‘Chant for Splendour’, a classical guitar piece that functions as a build into the finale of the album, the ten minute ‘Chant for Enlightenment’. This peace sees Passeisme flirt with the virtues of musical contrast, with the first half reaching for if anything higher levels of intensity and aggression than the preceding tracks, only to dispense with the frantic, melodic riffing with very little ceremony and breakout into classical guitar again. This in turn gives way to a slow metallic finale, essentially the same general approach as the bulk of the album but with the tempo slowed. From this vantage point we are offered a more detailed view of the architecture behind Passeisme’s riffing style.

All would be ideal were it not for the lack of integration. ‘Chant for Enlightenment’ is essentially three tracks stuck together, which in itself would not be a problem, but having broken the flow of galloping melodic black metal only to reintroduce it in a slower, more dramatic form feels tacked on. It may be a small blemish, but after the exhausting slog of the opening handful of tracks, one could be forgiven for feeling that these slower elements and new timbres would have served to bring additional dimensions to the rest of the album, and grant ‘Eminence’ a little more character in the process. All the same, this is above average in the field, and certainly one to add to the new wave of bands resurrecting melodic, riff-based black metal with a decidedly contemporary sheen despite the overt historicism of the conceptual material.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

The third strike in a row from the great French label Antiq records after the fantastic new albums by Hanternoz and newcomers Ascète. This time though they have turned to a Russian band despite the (at least to me) pretty French sounding name of the outfit. In fact all of them are current or past members of the HM2 worshippers Wombripper, whose 2018 album “From the Depths of Flesh” I highly enjoyed. In fact this album is still one of my go-to works in case I am in the mood for a bit of chain-sawing action. Listening to Passéisme’s debut full length “Eminence” with the background info in mind one can clearly see the influences of said outfit, as there are sprinkles of death metal and a certain punky attitude mixed into the overall sound.

This impression starts with the vocals which have more of a raspy tone and remind me quite a bit of singers like Riley Gale (RIP) or Martin van Drunen. Maybe not as deep and upbeat, but certain similarities are there – at least to my ears. The songwriting shows the experience of the musicians involved, with the music always packed with a fiery ferocity and real power. That being said while the music is pretty aggressive most of the time they have not forgotten to throw in the kind of glorious melodies we have come to appreciate from Antiq releases and stuff coming out of France in general. Most songs are downright infectious to experience, as the venom works its way through your ears into your brain with astonishing speed. Maybe this album is not as easy on the ear during the first spin like e.g. “Par le sang verse” by Véhémence has been when it hit scene in 2019, but some of the folky and medieval harmony sequences have a similar style and impact.

As well something enjoyable is the structure and the progression from one riff and melody bleeding into the next one and so on, until certain pieces and chords are repeated all over again, often with some subtle adoptions. This also proves that the rhythmic content is well structured and properly performed, and while overall there is a certain monotony inherent in this album, the songs fly by and are real fun. I absolutely enjoy the way Passéisme are weaving their trademark melodies into the battering attacks like e.g. in the second half of “Chant for Insolence”. Most songs are ferocious and straight forward, but the listener can take a breath during the short acoustic track “Chant for Splendour” before Passéisme start their magnum opus, the over 10 minutes long “Chant for Enlightenment”. This is a monument of a black metal tune, with the whirlwind guitars and the driving rhythm building up to something utterly epic and special.

The whole album is bleak, monochromatic and brilliantly put together. This isn't exactly raw and vicious black metal, it is instead something much more controlled with a clear vision and a distinct path forward. Gruesomely dark with a morbid spark to the violence that is captivating amidst the more ear-pleasing ambience, there is so much brooding contempt within this release when you scratch below the surface. This is one of those records that absolutely reward consecutive and concentrated listens. Aside from all the barrage of vicious blasting drums and tremolo guitar madness, there is also some gorgeously melancholic sounds that work as counterpart to hefty instrumentation. “Eminence” is an album blending raw and unfiltered black metal with on-point songwriting and Passéisme have all the violence and piercing hatred as a driving force behind their unholy art. Another Antiq release coming with unrestricted recommendation.