Brouillard - Brouillard (2018) - CD DIGIFILE

Third album from the band called "Brouillard"

CD digifile 3 panels, booklet 12 pages

Atmospheric Black Metal

I've got a CD that's amazing for a few reasons. Brouillard is nothing more than a completely underground, small black metal institution, located in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, commanded by a woman using the same pseudo. Our hero is the owner of the tiny label Transcendance, in which she releases, among others, two own projects. One of them is Brouillard - an enigmatic, one-man creation, exploring the darkest and climatic side of black metal.

This is the first case in which I meet black metal made by a woman from the beginning to the end, so curiosity reached to the sky. Brouillard serves the third installment under this banner. It's easy to get lost in it, because the artist does not give titles to her works - all albums and songs are defined by this word, meaning fog.

This record is nothing but an hour of dark, very stuffy atmosphere. The four compositions are extended to several minutes and they create a gloomy and overcrowded cold image of emptiness. There is forest and moon, mountains and snow. The starting point is the tremolous riff based on the background of the basement blast, encapsulated with components enhancing the atmosphere – dark keyboards mixed with dilapidated guitar motifs which are a balance for the classic Scandinavian school.

Associations with Burzum's first achievements are perfectly in place, but at Brouillard there are more dark spaces and poignant cold. A French artist without a pardon bows to Tobias Mockl - responsible for the cult bands Darkspace and Paysage D'Hiver, but is not a mindless copist of the work of the Swiss. The chill and gloom of Brouillard seems to be the result of fascination with the most blasphemous, black crews from the time when the genre has become highly radicalized, filtered through the dark cave ambient of Lustmord and the old British cold wave school. This does not mean that we find a song melodic fragments here, but if the extended motifs condense to a few minutes, the effect could be astonishing.

It is impossible not to mention the vocal - if someone expected inspired, women's wounds, this is not the way. Brouillard is more brutal than Nocturno Culto and darker than Varg Vikernes. If I did not know, I would not think that the microphone is being held by a woman. this voice, combined with atmospheric music, charms and pushes melancholy, which in itself is an added value. Over a dozen of listening sessions made the album grow to the size of a small, black metal masterpiece - of course in its atmospheric class, because we agree - this variety is not digestible for everyone, but if someone feels good in a dense forest at night, in a foggy moonlight, the Brouillard proposal will be perfect.

Rafal, KVLT Magazine.