ALBUM REVIEW: Destin Messianique – Givre
Black metal in Quebec has undergone a resurgence within the last decade, with many of its acts putting out arguably some of the best black metal albums of recent years. Although the likes of FORTERESSE, MONARQUE and DELETERE have gone on to enjoy wider critical acclaim and popularity outside of their homeland, there are still dozens of hidden gems throughout this scene, and all of them are well worth checking out, especially for those who enjoy their black metal a little more melodic and atmospheric. One excellent example is GIVRE, a hugely underrated trio whose initial tenure as a band ended in 2014, with the members going on to form avant-garde black metal act ENTHEOS, with just one album, …Et Dans L’absurde, Nous Pourrirons, under their belt. Since returning in 2021 with their second album, Le Pressoir Mystique, the band have kept themselves busy and are back with album number three Destin Messianique – another great record that stands as one of the better black metal records of 2022.
La Sainte-Vierge Intervenant En Faveur De L‘armée Française À La Bataille De La Monongahéla (9 Juillet 1755) is an exceptionally dark and atmospheric opening gambit, with crystalline guitars and a relatively minimalist approach creating a beguiling, borderline shoegaze sound which gradually shifts towards a meatier offering as it progresses without losing its grandiosity. It immediately grabs the listener’s attention before Le Christ Aux Oliviers takes an ominous turn, with hellish, howling vocals and harsher distortion lending the music some heavier sections. Here, the subtle use of keyboards and a jangly, ethereal guitar tone makes for a dramatic sound that is far removed from traditional black metal, but simultaneously complementary to it.
Érable Rouge utilises full chords and haunting keyboards to build a cavernous sound, with tortured vocals, speed-driven motifs, church bells and a mix with just the right amount of rawness shifting the music even further into the realms of black metal. The sudden introduction of a slick, virtuosic guitar solo adds another excellent dimension, coming unexpectedly but not sounding out of place. La Voix again applies a monolithic guitar sound to proceedings with brilliant results. Visceral shouted vocals and intricate riffs vie for attention before the music lurches into a hypnotic and measured passage that brings back the pronounced shoegaze influences of the opening track to make for a great interlude between this song’s two weightier halves.
The thrilling Cantique Pour La Canonisation De La Vénérable Jeanne d‘Arc, with its galloping pace, classic metal undercurrent and acidic, snarling vocals, combines melodicism and energy to inject a livelier but criminally fleeting burst of epic intensity that works extremely well. Le Laboureur, with its chunky, hazier sound, has a hypnotic quality to it, with the shrieking, bellicose vocals carving through this relatively sanguine sound and giving the music a rabid counterpoint that, along with the folky and cinematic components that come into play and the introduction on sonorous vocals, makes for an engrossing affair.
Dernier Martyr proves to be arguably the most abrasive and feral song on the record, with fast, grating and discordant guitars, arid vocal deliveries and frenetic drums injecting an urgent, chaotic feel into an album that has up to this point been fairly immersive and reserved. It’s a change of pace that works as well as any of the earlier tracks on the record, adding more depth to an already eclectic and imaginative album. The song’s closing moments revert to the blackened shoegaze hybrid, albeit with an unhinged tempo, with Consécration À La Vierge Par Maurice Duplessis acting as a brief outro that brings together bombastic keyboards and spoken word recordings. It feels like the closing moments of the preceding track as opposed to a track in its own right, and the album’s concluding one at that.
Destin Messianique has all the hallmarks of the best Quebecois black metal, with plenty of twists that make it distinct from other acts within this scene. There’s a predominant atmosphere and melodicism here, and the pronounced shoegaze influences that often make their presence known, which helps to draw the listener in, but with a production that has just the right amount of rawness to it to give it a dirty sound without sounding tinny or thin. It’s stunning and deeply immersive at points, but doesn’t rely on its more atmospheric elements too much to carry the music. Rather, it uses the keyboards and ethereal guitar tones to elevate and accentuate music that is already brilliant in its own right. This record, along with the recently re-issued version of last year’s Le Pressoir Mystique, are well worth checking out, with this most recent one in particular one of the more underrated albums of the year so far.
Rating: 9/10
Destin Messianique is out now via Eisenwald.
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