I posted yesterday that I have been listening to more post metal, and lo and behold, here is two days in a row of reviews representing the genre. I also mentioned how broad the genre can be, and case in point, this one sounds nothing like the one I reviewed yesterday!

Swiss band De l’Abîme Naît l’Aube released their debut full length in mid February, “Rituel: Initiation,” and wow, what a way to make a first impression! Self-described as shamanic post metal, the music is a unique blend of doomy post metal, atmospheric black metal, and trance-like neo-folk. This album can be brutally heavy: pulverizing riffs and drums crushing your skull, demented vocals haunting your dreams. It can be blissfully beautiful: the sounds of nature, throat singing and soaring vocals in choir-like fashion, soothing hypnotic melodies. The use of dynamics is excellent, evoking a variety of moods as each song progresses. And each song is LONG, willing to its time to generate atmosphere, build mood, and meander amongst its myriad soundscapes. There are only five songs, but four of them are longer than eleven minutes, with the only anomaly a nearly 5-minute instrumental. Despite the seeming extreme length of the songs, the album feels perfectly paced, never overstaying its welcome and delivering perfectly across the course of the album. The band’s name is French for “From the abyss comes the dawn,” an idea that a new start can rise up from the darkness. This mood is felt throughout each composition, as you can feel the textures of despair and hopelessness juxtaposed against more hopeful ones. Musically, there are times when this reminds me of a melding of the post atmospheric black and shoegaze sounds of Alcest with the neo-folk of Skáld, just with heavier blackened doom flavors and an overall more epic feel.

Opener “Une Pleine Absence” is just shy of twelve minutes and takes its time, starting almost Skáld-like with its percussive ambiance, throat singing choir-like effect, ethereal female vocals, and light melodic guitar flourishes. It is nearly to the four minutes mark before any distortion enters the fray, and it is crushing in its doomy delivery, tormented blackened growls backed by the same ethereal female vocals over powerful riffs and pulverizing drums, airy melodies piercing through. Around the five and a half minutes mark, it adds a sinister brutality, maintaining the slower doom pace with a grueling black metal vibe, vocals more torturous, all bathed in beautiful atmosphere as cleans soar in the background. Eight minutes in sees a complete dynamic shift, pivoting to moody indie rock, male and female vocals in concert, slowly building to an Explosions in the Sky like climax, big guitar melodic soundscapes painting the airwaves with a final reprise of vocal torment, before finally beginning a soft guitar strummed fade.

“Un Sanctuaire de Cendres” is almost thirteen minutes. Droney atmosphere envelopes a slow but confident blackened riff, dreamy layered cleans setting the stage early, making room for the harsh vocals to take centerstage. The layering is done so well, dueling mechanics in both guitars and vocals, adding an underlying progginess while making everything feel massive. They also make great use of dynamics and tempo shifts, such as the brief ambient section around four minutes that quickly crescendos into blackened chaos. The five minutes marks sees a marked shift to more of a Skáld vibe, trance-like in its ethereality with its percussive ambiance surrounded by sounds of nature and throat singing. Over the course of two minutes it slowly builds, maintaining the backdrop and eventually adding back the heavier doom elements, dueling harsh and female vocals facing off in a showdown between Jekyll and Hyde, a dichotomy of angelic beauty and hellspawn. The song grows in urgency without increasing in tempo, hitting an apparent climax that subsides into ambient guitar musings.

“Le Vertigo d’une Descendance” clocks in right at twelve and a half minutes, continuing the trend of long opuses. It is also in no hurry as it begins, letting a simple guitar melody develop over a simple drum and guitar rhythm. Alto female vocals soar in choir like ambiance, with harsh vocals teasing from deep within the background. Even close to three minutes in when the harsh vocals become a bit more prominent, they are still lurking in the shadows, before jump scaring you a mere thirty seconds later as crushing riffs appear, layering in the early song melodies and cleans to create a massive diaphanous backdrop. About halfway through, the intro gets a reprise, just more subdued, adding in the folksy throat singing as a backing choir. The female vocals eventually take the lead, giving the listener a brief reprieve before the crushing riffs resume. The remainder of the song maintains the heavy soundscape, but alternates harsh vocals and layered male/female cleans, beautiful melodies punching through. The ending picks up the pace and drives a sense of urgency, the harsh vocals impassioned in their torturous delivery as the drums drive and the airy melodies become more prominent as the song comes to its close. 

“Une Première Epiphanie” is the only short track, a four minutes song identifying as an instrumental but allowing a backing choir to function as an atmospheric element as the band so often does. After the urgency at the end of the previous song, this gives the listener a breather, settling your ears for the final track, “Une Absolue Présence,” which wastes no time punching you in the gut. It begins slow and methodic, doomy blows pulverizing as tortured shrieks regularly pierce through. It calms two minutes in, subdued cleans and a muted guitar melody, then knocks you over ninety seconds later with a full on doom force, complete with an epic convergence of harsh and cleans in choir like fashion that would be the epic conclusion for the average album. Not so here, as we aren’t even halfway done at the five minutes mark! The song transitions into the album’s final ambient section, ethereal atmosphere soaking the air as cleans and throat singing calm, prepping you for the album’s final offering. And wow, what an extended climax it is! Frenetic chaos ensues as everything converges at once, thunderous drums annihilating with brief blasting, pulverizing riffs creating a massive soundscape with atmospheric melodies floating over top, harsh vocals pained in their torturous virtue, cleans providing an eerie backdrop. The band definitely saved the heaviest moments for the end, and it wraps up this incredible album perfectly.

This is an utterly incredible debut, and I get lost in its entrancing variety. I just saw clips from their album release show and nearly lost it, as their live presence looks amazing and does a great job capturing the essence of the recording. This album is required listening and will scratch both the softer melodic and more brutal metal itches while impressing with its incredible craftmanship.