La mort du soleil

I don't even know what to call this musical direction that Gris and Sombres Forêts started down on their Miserere Luminis collaboration. It's some sort of weird atmospheric classical avant-garde depressive post-black metal thing I suppose, but whatever it's supposed to be it was done better on that collaboration than on either project's respective followups. And while they did take a good while to compose and release his part, Annatar Sombres Forêts hit first with La mort du soleil. It's an album that does have the same emotional inspiration that Miserere Luminis did, but this time it's much more boring.

I wouldn't blame anyone saying that this isn't even black metal. The music sounds so far removed from the genre that I'm not certain myself. The riffs are soft sounding and post-rockish. It's not quite the same as the lighter moments of actual post-metal like Isis or Cult of Luna, but the similarities are there aside from there being no sludge influence. Now that really isn't a problem in and of itself, but the execution of this sound leaves a lot to be desired. There are some cool sounding guitar melodies thrown in, especially on the early parts of "Brumes", and there's a lot of cool echoy effects that Annatar does with the occasional use of a bow on the guitar. But all these elements are mixed into these long songs that are really slow paced. It just feels like a chore to listen to.

The airy atmosphere of this album mixed with the slow tempo are just too much. As clichéd as this statement is, this is an album that makes me want to fall asleep. For music of this style to work, there needs to be some sort of buildup leading toward a cathartic sounding crescendo or some kind of explosive twist in the songs. La mort du soleil doesn't feature either of those things well, and this is not an album whose songs can carry themselves on riffs (because there are none). The idea is still cool, but this was done way better by Annatar with the help of the guys in Gris on Miserere Luminis. Go listen to that instead.

About five years on from "Royaume de Glace", this third album from Sombres Forets seems a more introspective, contemplative effort with a greater emphasis on atmosphere and intense emotion. Melody and riffs dictate the nature of the songs with less busyness and more space within. Annatar is allowing the mood and subject matter of the song together to dictate its direction. In contrast with "Royaume de Glace", all songs are now sung in French which I think is a wise decision: Annatar probably realised that his music would have a limited appeal in an English-speaking Canadian market already saturated with Anglophone ambient depressive BM within its own borders and from the US, and he would have found his own language a better vehicle to communicate intense feeling and opinion.

The music has a softer edge this time and a deep cavernous echo effect gives it a three-dimensional sculptural feel. Annatar's singing is more dominant in the mix than it has ever been although his voice can be thin and a bit ragged. There may be post-BM influences in some of the music - certainly the BM tremolo guitars seem less constantly noisy though they are always present. Montreal's famous children Godspeed You Black Emperor may be one source of inspiration. Sometimes the pace is relaxed, allowing for plenty of emotional drama to burst out. Lead guitar solo break-outs now appear but don't usually dominate the songs where they appear.

Although on their own the songs are quite good, bunched together on the album they tend to sound very similar and could just about run straight from one into another and you would not notice much change. A lot of riffs and melodrama is packed into each song and considerable anguish and agony are expressed as well. Over 52 minutes, so much unhappiness and personal torment delivered so intensely can either be exhausting or a complete turn-off depending on listeners' mood. Very few songs let rip with explosions of BM anger and rage at an unforgiving and indifferent world that looks askance at individuals' pain as they struggle through life. There is more melancholy and passive acceptance of dire fate it seems than there is of fury against so much unfairness. One stand-out is "L'Ether" which includes a thumping drum introduction, clear guitar melodies as well as tremolo BM-string texture streams and passages of acoustic guitar wistfulness. Other instruments that feature on the album include piano (especially on one of the middle tracks, "Au Flambeau") and possibly violin and mandolin in some parts.

All tracks are long - quite a few go past the 9-minute mark - and arguably they could have been edited for length as within them there's not that much escalation of intense emotion or other conflict that would result in a dramatic and memorable climax. Entire tracks are pretty much ongoing purges of sorrow and intense feeling.

For Sombres Forets, this album builds upon previous work and extends the act's range much further into melodic post-BM territory. However a lot of BM acts have progressed from depressive BM to depressive melodic post-BM rock in similar ways so this move for Sombres Forets doesn't come as a surprise. It was a significant leap from the first album "Quintessence" to the second "Royaume de Glace" but this move into depressive rock with near-operatic intensity and something of the nature of a confessional somehow seems expected. It's as if knowing that this recording exists, we realise everything Annatar had done so far with Sombres Forets was pointing in this direction all along.

I think now if Annatar wants to stand out from the pack with Sombres Forets and not give the appearance of following the herd, he has to consider sticking his neck out into musical territories far from BM.

A burning ship sinks in the middle of a raging sea. The meeting of conflicting elements (fire and water) causes this dramatic situation, beautifully depicted on the newest Sombres Forêts album cover. Symbolism and tragedy are indeed the frame of La Mort du Soleil, an album which marks the renaissance of the Quebec, five years after the Royaume de Glace release.

However, band stylistic transformation jumps to the ears almost immediately. Much richer and complex, music written by Annatar (founder and sole member of the group) for this album draws its inspiration from several registers and transcends the usually sealed borders of black metal. Piano and acoustic guitar are thus introduced alongside the usual noisy guitar distortion and drumming, while a clean production highlights the vast amount of time spent on each song’s creation.

However, general atmosphere is without a doubt this record main strength. It evokes a violin string, which must be stretched to the limit in order to generate a note. This intensity can be perceived at every turn taken by the author, even in the quieter moments. It takes the listener into a dense and demanding universe, where every detail counts. Screamed and torn voice also accentuates the “end of time” impression, a real metaphysical anguish transposed into music.

Comparisons with À l’âme enflammée, l’âme constellée, Gris’ latest record (released the same day and also distributed by Sepulchral Productions) however are inevitable. The two bands share many aesthetic features and seem to be progressing in parallel, with differentiation based only on a few specific elements (voice, etc.). Although the results are excellent, each band should probably try to explore different paths in the future.

La Mort du Soleil shows again the remarkable quality of Quebec’s Ambient/Atmospheric Black Metal scene, probably one of the best in the world. Rich, complex and often beautiful, songs on this album lead the listener into a tragic odyssey, marked by a successful amalgam of beautiful acoustic parts and furious metal passages. Coupled with an upcoming European tour, this release should allow Sombres Forêts to broaden its audience and strengthen its headlining role among Quebec Black Metal bands.

Originally written for Métal Obscur.

Métal noir, the Quebec self identification for francophone black metal, has become quite a fruitful nest. From Forteresse to Chasse-Galerie, and from Mysothéisme to Neige et Noirceur, it offers a large variety of genres – covering all of the orthodox, raw, pagan and atmospheric ends of the spectrum. Far from being second grade stagnant or nostalgic, the métal noir scene got the attention of a worldwide horde of black metallers around the world for its fine line-ups and avant-garde bands.

Quebec City’s Sombres Forêts is no newcomer. The offspring of brainchild Annatar, it built a solid reputation over two albums, including 2008’s Royaume de Glace. Annatar also participated with fellow label mates Neptune and Icare from Gris to a well-received side project, Miserere Luminis in 2009. Moving the journey further, La Mort du Soleil, the latest release under the Sombres Forêts moniker, brings these ideas to a new level.

La Mort du Soleil falls right into the atmospheric black metal category. Mid paced, it breathes all the way through, with a balance between heavy instrumentation and melancholic piano or guitar passages. With an absence of blast beats and very few moments of piccolo guitars attack, we get closer to latter-days Drudkh (for example on “L’Éther”) than any post-metal take on atmospheric black metal. Layers and layers of nature-like sounds, including thunderstorms, chilly winds and unknown sounds have been added, as well as additional vocals, extra guitars, and percussions. There is an impressive mastery of reversed guitars incorporation across the landscape, and rich yet delicate coats of reverb added to the music, reminding me vaguely of Arcana Coelestia and Dolorian. At certain moments, I even thought I could hear the very subtle guitar familiarity with some French avant-garde black metal bands such as Deathspell Omega (“La Disparition”).

This tasty mix of technical approaches is serving well the general atmosphere proposed by the album. Deeply melancholic, it navigates the seas of 19th Century Romanticism. The artwork itself, designed by French artist Fursy Teyssier, is a manifest homage to J.M. William Turner’s (1775-1851) paintings. Dark, stormy and indefinite, but also beautifully powerful, it depicts perfectly the moods and atmosphere found on the eloquently-titled La Mort du Soleil.

Sombres Forêts’ third album is grandiose and its greater merit is that it will undoubtly appeal to a larger audience than métal noir bands usually do. For many, this will probably be the first atmospheric black metal album they listen to and enjoy. For many others (myself included), I think it is an album that continues the path already laid by a few others, including Gris. On that note, it would be hard not to draw comparisons with the latter: both bands are using trademark suffering screams, both released their latest album through Sepulchral Productions on the same day, and both crossed path recently in Miserere Luminis. Check out both bands, and pick up a copy of La Mort du Soleil.

-TheBlackHull
[Originally written for theblackhull.blogspot.ca]

Continuing Sepulchral Productions' gold rush of 2013 is the third full length effort from Quebec's Sombres Forêts ('Dark Forests'), not to be mistaken for Calgary's Dark Forest, which performs more of a pagan, structured form of black metal. But don't let that statement mislead you into thinking that La Mort du Soleil is somehow loose at the seams, for this is an extremely atmospheric experience which revels in its ambient textures just as much as its harsher content. Equal parts ghastly and gentle, Annatar's writing really gives the cover artwork some context, because the listener is made to feel as if he/she is deep at sea on some battered old vessel, where periods of tranquil, sun-flecked skies are ruptured by torrential rains and choppy, terrifying waves. Not the sort of record you'd seek out if you just wanted something sinister to sear your face off, but if you've got the better part of an hour to kill by the docks with a bottle of your favorite poison and a whole lotta problems weighing in on your mind, well this is sort of like a surreal soundtrack to Old Man of the Sea if it had been penned by Varg Vikernes and not Hemingway...

Lots of pianos, wistful and dreamy acoustic guitars, ambient feeds and varied vocal arrangements strewn about its seascape; an ocean of heirlooms and objects, each connected to some sorrow or regret, cast out to drown but never fully submerged. From the simplest pieces, like "Effrondrement" which is more or less a rolling piano piece with some slightly creepy, distant vocal harmonies; to the more calamitous epics such as "Brumes" or "La Disparition", Annatar is nothing if not tonally passive/aggressive. Ebb and flow, low to high tide and back again, you haven't always got a lot of warning before the raw, abrasive guitars drench the scene with a tone quite familiar to the fans of depressive or suicidal hemisphere of black metal. We're not talking full-bodied, complex riffing patterns, or even rhythm progressions that would stand to scrutiny if separated from everything else, but more of a sizzling accompaniment that erupts almost like a post rock swell, when the emotional floodgates are torn from their hinges. In this, it's not entirely different than Annatar's Miserere Luminis collaborators Gris on their new double-album, but on the other hand, the acoustic guitars at least are a bit more on the subtle side (like in "L'Éther), not meant to shine entirely by themselves.

Drumming patterns range from the tribal and meditative (like the beautiful bridge in "La Disparition") to splashy explosions during the heavier sections, but while the snare pops straight through, the balance between the vocals and other instruments is such that I often felt like some of the cymbals were reduced to a bit of a hiss when the guitars are crashing along. Not an issue where the music becomes less dense and cacophonous, though. Bass guitar lines are pretty simple and often seem to disappear altogether, but they definitely cultivate a lowly grooving blackgaze sensation when they matter the most ("Étrangleurs de Soleils") and this is not the sort of sound where it's often an important component. As for Annatar's vocals, I cannot say that they're the most unique sort of rasp out there; he delivers a lot of sustained lines that fit the sheer expansiveness of the music, but you might not be able to always pick him out of a lineup of similar snarlers. To make up for that, though, La Mort du Soleil is heavily saturated with ethereal, dreary or even ringing clean vocals which are often so subtly infused to the other instruments that you feel like that forsaken sailor I hinted at earlier; slowly losing your grip on reality. Are those the voices of angels as you approach the afterlife? Sirens singing you into the depths and their bellies? Or rescuers over the next angry wave-crest...

...whatever the answer, they really contribute so much to the impression Sombres Forêts leaves upon your spirit, and similar to Gris, show an enhanced sense of composition which does not solely hinge on riffing alone. Annatar is a composer first, and though he chooses to express himself partly through the grim savagery of the black metal medium, he is by no means restricted to its parameters. Or, rather, he reminds us that there ARE no parameters, no boundaries, and to leave such follies drowning behind you. You cannot defy conformity through conformity, after all, and that's why it's so great to hear artists like these in the Quebecois scene who create such texture-heavy musical 'retreats' into the wilderness. La Mort du Soleil is further evidence that this particular scene is helping to lead the charge away from banality into rapture, and I, for one, enjoyed it even more than Annatar's previous outings with this project. Highly recommended to fans of Gris, Forteresse, Neige et Noirceur, Sorcier des Glaces, and Lustre, though for most of those it goes without saying.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com