In any genre, there’s always at least one act who feel they need to take things further than the rest. The fastest Speed Metal, the slowest Doom Metal, the shortest Grindcore. Add an inexplicable desire for self-imposed rules such as no keyboards, no clean singing etc. – voluntary limitations that usually end up getting sidestepped at some point anyway – and you either have a recipe for disaster or one for success.
Metal has always brought out this kind of extremity in people. Whether it’s an aesthetic like costumes or make-up, or something on a musically creative level, these rituals and rules may eventually be broken but it’s the initial idea that grabs people’s imaginations.
In a category like Black Metal with its many subgenres and sub-subgenres you need a hook, so what better attention-grabber than medieval musical instruments?
Formed in 2013, French act Grylle refuses the temptation of easily accessible tools of the trade, opting instead for instruments such as flutes, pipes, and brass. Drums, lutes, mandolins, psalterions (ancient Greek harps), and citoles (13th-century four-string guitars) are all acceptable but synthesisers and standard electric guitars are a big no-no.
The brainchild of multi-talented Léon Guiselin (aka Hyver/Hyvermor), the band now feature Cadavre on drums and KK on bass (or its historical equivalent), with female vocals courtesy of Joanna Maeyens (aka La Griesche).
Featuring an overarching theme of sickness and plague, latest album Egrotants, Souffreteux, Cacochymes, Covidards (Antiq) basically translates to “sick, suffering, ageing, Covid.” So, lots of happy thoughts here then.
Opener “Grande Marche des Covidards” (Great March of Covid) sounds like a medieval parade for the terminally ill, complete with coughing and Black Metal vocals that sound like death really isn’t too far away. “Mauvais Sang” (Bad Blood) is catchier than it has any right to be and, much like the rest of the album, despite the complete absence of modern instruments, you’d never even know it.
The fast-paced “Moribon Flétri d’Orgueil” (Moribund Withered With Pride) is followed by “Réservement de Confortale Présence” (Prayer of Comforting Presence), a prayer spoken over a funereal march that builds to a distorted climax before the speed and slow groove combination of “Le Tropique du Cancer” (Tropic of Cancer). “Queresle des Diables sur la Savance du Mort” (Fight of the Devils arguing over the Possession of the Wisdom of the Dying Man) boasts a strong groove and blasts of speed, and whether by accident or design, the string and brass sections on closer “Le Triomphe de la Mort” (Triumph of the Death) recreate the same dark atmosphere as the fourth movement of “Symphonie Fantastique” by coincidentally French composer Hector Berlioz.
If you didn’t know Medieval Black Metal existed then get a prescription for Egrotants, Souffreteux, Cacochymes, Covidards right now.
Traditional instruments have never sounded so Metal.
Buy the album here:
https://antiqrecords.com/
8 / 10
GARY ALCOCK
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