ALBUM REVIEW: La France des Maudits – Seth
French black metallers SETH return with their latest opus La France des Maudits as they follow up their 2021 album La Morsure Du Christ with more atmospheric black metal goodness, only this time it’s even grander than everything that has gone before it.
Wasting absolutely no time in creating the same haunting atmosphere that has woven a shadowy web over their previous material, from opening track Paris des Maléfices onwards SETH deliver in style. It is prime black metal with their prevalent Gallic flair in full flow, with the band conquering all that comes before them with their powerful take on the grander side of black metal. La France des Maudits (which means ‘France of the accursed’) is an album that lyrically touches on the French Revolution and its razor sharp blasts draw blood in the same way that it was spilled in the decade that spanned the revolution while also adding a touch of that grandeur in its epic nature for results that are both powerful and breathtaking.
The vocals of Saint Vincent on La France des Maudits are both commanding and haunting throughout, especially on a song like La Destruction des Reliques where it sounds like he is leading an army into battle, which is very fitting given the revolutionary topics that the album deals with. Add to that the fact that the music constantly sounds like a battle in full flow and you have an album that held together thematically extremely well. Combine it also with more passionate and haunting vocals as personified on a song like Dans le Cœur un Poignard, as well as an anthemic and triumphant musical soundscape, and you have a perfect mixture for a band like SETH to reign supreme on this record.
There is also the sublime interlude Marianne, a track that allows you to sit back and marvel at its beauty before the battle resumes with more venomous (but no less epic) tracks such as Ivre du Sang des Saints and Insurrection declaring a form of audio war with gleeful abandon. The album ends with the monumental Le Vin du Condamné and it concludes La France des Maudits in perfect style with its majesty encapsulated in eight minutes of what makes this album and the music of SETH itself such a majestic prospect. The haunting refrain at the conclusion of the track and indeed the album comes across as very valid indeed, and the fact that it conjures up the same feeling as it does at the start of the album is a touch of class for sure.
La France des Maudits is an album that SETH should be rightly proud of. Its execution is delivered in a grand fashion and it sees the band combine that epicness with a romantic flair whilst never losing its heaviness or its haunting nature.
Rating: 8/10
La France des Maudits is set for release on July 14th via Season Of Mist.
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