Gris - Il Était une Forêt...
Sepulchral Productions
Black Metal
6 songs (59:32)
Release year: 2007
Official Myspace, Sepulchral Productions
Reviewed by Charles
Archive review
Listen to the first few seconds of Il était une forêt... and you could be forgiven for expecting that ghostly synth line to be joined by a gently pulsating dance beat and ambient trance vocal hook. This being depressive black metal, that doesn’t happen. Instead, that clear, frosty progression is doused in an icy bucket of distorted guitar and a harrowing vocal wail. The guitar sound Gris use is so crackling and fuzzy, the hiss that accompanies it at all times it is like the sound of light but insistent rain on a window pane. The perfect analogy for this strange but wonderful album. Its often delicate combination of otherworldly and oppressive, Xasthurian black metal with gorgeous melodies and textures is a bit like being inside an isolated cabin, log fire raging, looking out at a dark, rainy night through the glass.

It’s not often I feel the need to try my hand at a poetic simile, but such is the power of this rather unique record. Its slow tempos and rich synth lines imbue it with an austere, frosty grace. The latter in particular add an awful lot to this. In my view, they take the approach to electronics used on Burzum’s Dunkelheit to the next level- a subtle shadow adding depth and cold colour to an otherwise monochromatic black metal sound. But for all this, Gris are also capable of searing tunefulness- a blazing melody illuminating a barren scene. Take the central section of Cicatrices, for example. A dual-harmonised lead guitar cries out a vivid melodic line in a manner perhaps a little more flamboyant than you’d expect from the album as a whole. In that sense it’s a little comparable to Drudkh’s Blood in our Wells; a dour and quite minimalist band discovering the potency of a wailing lead line.

In spite of this austere vulnerability, this is also a quirky, unstable record. At times, like the applause dubbed on to La Gala de Gens Heureux, the discordant acoustic guitar interludes and sobbing vocals of Cicatrices, or the gurgling baby laughter that introduces Veux-tu danser?, there is a sense of the weird and theatrical that seems a little like a prototype for Pensees Nocturnes’s last word in French-language black metal absurdity, Grotesque. Not having paid enough attention in my French classes at school, I find it hard to verify, but at times it feels like there is a real duality in tone. Veux-tu danser?, through much of its length a strange mess of piano jangling and odd wailing, builds into a heroic metal guitar-fest- a strange piece it is difficult to really pin down. But then you progress straight to the easily-translatable Profonde Misanthropie; an imposingly slow trudge through minimalist black metal murk reminiscent of Ruins of Beverast, given an eerie gothic atmosphere by the wailing “ooh”s in the background.

The end result is an enigmatic and fascinating album. You never quite get a handle on what it is, and what it is trying to do. Whilst I can give or take the self-mythologizing (they have declared they will release six albums, to be considered as one epic whole, and then leave us) music like this can actually pull it off. One of the highlights of the obscure world of Canadian black metal.

Killing Songs :
Album as a whole
Charles quoted 90 / 100
Other albums by Gris that we have reviewed:
Gris - À l’âme enflammée, l’äme constellée… reviewed by Charles and quoted 75 / 100
1 readers voted
Average:
 95
You did not vote yet.
Vote now

There are 14 replies to this review. Last one on Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:09 am
View and Post comments