À travers les lambeaux

Krucyator Productions are back with another sick release. This time label boss Loic has signed a band from Quebec/Canada, and anybody being familiar with some of the bands from this area might have a feeling what to expect. Often you get a certain level of grittiness combined with some nice technical playing and a few more unorthodox ideas, and this is something which could be said about “A travers les lambeaux” as well. Shezmu turned a few heads with their EPs, but here on their debut full length they finally show their full potential.

Dense, destructive, and domineering, their music seems to be the stuff of a dark and necromantic ritual, a form of arcane pitch-black incantation which draws its sinister energies from the shedding of blood on a massive scale. The main ingredients of this unholy cocktail have been taken from the death metal pool, with the hypnotic and stoic guitar chords sawing their way into the listener’s cerebellum. Some impressive soloing is used for creating a certain feeling of chaos, but this is far from technical death metal. Flickering guitar leads add a feeling of lunatic zealotry to this vaulting assault on the senses. The tracks flow into each other, and while there is nothing too catchy of hooky the listening experience is a fascinating one.

The vocals in particular are blood-freezing, sepulchral and cavernous in their tone, and the music channels the sensation of descending into a gaping, lightless maw of death with no end. This album is infiltrated with the febrile and spectral emanations of eerie harmonies that add further dimensions to the horror, and there are some variations in the drumming as well. Some blackish elements and disturbing audio effects are used to help ramping up the atmosphere even more, as well as some doomy passages finding their way into the mix. Some lighter pieces presenting acoustic and instrumental interludes have also been woven into the overall picture, lending the album additional layers.

The production is rotten and dirty, yet powerful and diversified. The direct approach of the mixing underlines the impression that “A travers les lambeaux” can be viewed as classic and occult death metal in the vein of such bands as e.g. Grave Miasma, although Shezmu try their best to separate themselves from the pack. The album is pretty short, clocking in just above the 30 minutes mark, but to fully appreciate the experience consecutive listens might be necessary anyway. All in all this is a very interesting piece of dark and obscure music, and while maybe not for everyone fans of the genre need to check this one out.