Resistance

I remember vaguely Thesyre’s last album, Exist!, a one-track, 35-minute hymn to individualism and self-reliance. This time, the lyrics are in French, leaving me somewhat in the dark, but judging by some of the more easily-decipherable titles (e.g. Hymne au merite, L’egalitarianisme freine l’excellence…), the ideology again figures prominently. Leaving aside the philosophic quarrels (“I believe in meritocracy because it means I needn’t question why I have what I have”, as some might cynically infer) it presents a marginally more intriguing, radical-individualist spin on black metal’s more standard misanthropic ideals, which is no doubt a blessing in a genre that thrives on arrogance and cold-heartedness.

But are Thesyre unique enough to walk it as they talk it? Kinda. Their music is refined and polished, or depending on taste worryingly tame, based around angular ideas that never devolve into the brutal charge or nihilistic emotionalism that we expect from such records. Their tunes sometimes bear little resemblance to black metal itself at all; the album’s opening gambit, on short intro Au Present, is a squelching but catchy bass-heavy thud with an almost Faith No More like funky oddness to it. It flows into Hymne au merite, which has a mid-tempo, grooving swagger comparable to more recent Darkthrone or Sarke, with a chorus comprised of jagged offbeat stabs that add a clever, modernist twist, and some flamboyant lead guitar flourishes towards the end that seem out of step with the snarling restraint of the preceding.

Much of the album continues in a similar vein. The pulse, of both the band and the listener, rarely increases to any great degree. Instead, Thesyre present an intellectual, perhaps Voivod-ian take on this refined, mid-tempo black metal stamp; stabbing at what is in reality pretty conventional metal with the odd twist or instrumental moment of flair. I compared it to recent Darkthrone in the last paragraph, but in reality it doesn’t have that energy, and it certainly doesn’t have the punk attitude. This is quite aloof music, and I suspect that is the point.

So, in that sense, Resistance is closer to true coldness than a lot of others on the contemporary black metal scene. Their music is dispassionate, defying those that look for an emotional punch. For me, that is a shame, but nonetheless it’s an intriguing, individualist take on the genre.