Enough prehistory and on to the EP itself. It contains three songs, two of them from the Repentance era, namely "L´Encre Et La Plume" and "Erythème". The third song "Le Baptistère" was written later on. This EP might only contain three songs, but with a playing time of nearly 27 minutes, this is almost as much as some bands have on a whole album. Two songs longer than 10 minutes, one almost six minutes. It should be quite obvious, that this will be no easy listening.

And should I go on "shocking" you? Well, they mix elements of Black Metal, Classic and even Jazz! Sounds strange, sounds strenuous and confusing? Maybe... In my opinion this mixture, which might appear so strange on the first sight, works extremely well and on top of that it’s highly discrete. Therefore it´s impossible to compare them to other bands and to be honest I just don´t want to do that. Normally I wouldn’t get granular on every song of the CD, but in this case I just have to do it, as every song is a "stand-alone" one in a way.

"L´Encre Et La Plume" starts with a majestic sound - a bit Dimmu Borgir like, not the vocals and such, but just the bombastic elements; to get a very rough impression - and continues with furious Black Metal vocals. So far nothing special I thought. But then they start to mix this with classical parts, changes in melody, atmosphere, pipes can be heard. And so far I’ve only heard 2 minutes of the song! In the last third of the song the classical part gets bigger. I’m quite sure, that this song must be a great live song, were the audience feels a bit like sitting in an Opera.

"Erythème" starts and I’m sitting in front of my hifi like: "What’s this?!" While I’m still somewhere in this imaginary opera, this song starts very chilling, totally jazzy with horns, piano and this typical Jazz rhythm. Those guys can really surprise you, suddenly the Black Metal vocals and blast beats start again. Jazz meets Black Metal, indeed! Those two genres get mixed up more and more as the song continues. Once again I haven’t even heard half of the song.

With "Le Baptistère" we go back to more Black Metal and the shortest song of the album, which is nevertheless quite long with a playing time of nearly six minutes. This might probably be the song that could convince the Black Metal purists out there. But be warned, "foreign" elements appear here as well. For example the classical part in the middle of the song, which slowly mixes with Black Metal again. There´s only one thing, that disturbs me a bit : The vocals. However, after a few times listening this gets more negligible.

Not to forget the lyrics, which are as complex and thought-provoking as the music itself. They might be described best, when I give you this short quote from their official page, where it says:

"La Rumeur des Chaînes is an expression of our fears and feelings about Human nature and his place in this world. It's a way to show our incomprehension of a too complex society, where the individual doesn't really exist anymore and in which we cannot find our way about. The lyrics deal with how the individual is perverted by his environment, how he is loosing any attachment to his roots."

So now you might have got a rough impression of this EP, but the best thing is, that you can always discover some new facetes of the songs, because of this variety.

To make this (admittedly rather) long story short: Sophisticated (Black)Metal, I really can´t and don´t want to pigeonhole, where the composers weren’t afraid mixing some, on the first sight, quite contradictionary genres to a monolithic record. So 9,5 points for this courageous mixture, as well for this interesting idea and to encourage those guys to keep up the good work!

written by Ateacina

Playing time: 26.42