NEIGE ET NOIRCEUR : L’ABIME DES JOURS, L’ECUME DES NUITS
Hypnotic Dirge Records
If dark ambience from Canada floats your funeral barge, Hypnotic Dirge should be your early port of call, and this release from Neige et Noirceur is a rimefrost-encrusted lighthouse that will guide you into the label’s waters with its grand, sub-zero atmosphere, stumbling, counterflowing found sounds, and raw, loose, super-bestial black metal shapes. This is a special release, encompassing Neige et Noirceur’s 2007 release on Dungeons Deep on disc one, and a collection of rare and unobtainable tracks on disc two. Its compilation-like nature means it’s not entirely coherent as a single entity, but there’s a rich imaginative charm in its slightly jumbled manner, and Spiritus’ new artwork makes this a beautiful package.
Disc one, “L’Abime des Jours, l’Ecume des Nuits” proper, comprises two long tracks, the first of which starts in a familiar fashion with a snowstorm, distorted whispers and the tolling of bells. The keys here sparkle with frost, but it’s not N&N’s style to skimp on the darkness, which erupts viciously here with a neat but desolate black metal riff. For a while this approach grimly obscures the tracks capacity for beauty with its submerged vocals and weak programming, but it’s all a means to an end – when the symphonic synths and pooling clean guitar make a re-emergence, they are all the stronger for the contrast. A gorgeous, mysterious melody and soaring glacial synths bring to a close a track which is fascinating and organic, despite its need for a firm editing hand.
The bonus tracks offered on the second disc are all strong examples of N&N’s melding of icy, ambient starkness with grim, black metal spite. “Décor astral sans Lune” is especially potent, its chaotic, filthy riff-work playing against an amazing clean, high synth line. The percussive element is an explosion, the eventual demise into snowfall and low strums and pulses a stark, wide-eyed relief. “L’Eveil dans le Mort” has a different flavour, a catchier and looser, yet still decidedly mean way of operating, that reminds me of fellow countrymen Poete Maudit, whilst “Apres la Nuit” is more stylistic, all ravens, growls, chains and icy sheen. These extra tracks are more to-the-point than the main feature, meaning that they’re an accessible hook to the new listener at the same time as being a treat for long-term fans.
If you’re fanatical about Quebecois ambient black metal (which isn’t as ridiculous an idea as an unbeliever might think – this is a remarkably rich vein), this limited run is a must-have; cultish, interesting and at times satisfyingly obscure. For the less accustomed to these wintry verses, N&N might prove a little unfocused, too prone to skipping the impulse to self-edit, but all the same, “L’Abime”’s aura and the varied nature of the second disc will, as mentioned, garner new support. Cold, atmospheric grimness of the most malicious kind.
72/100
ELLEN SIMPSON
