Neige Morte – Bicephaale (ConSouling Sounds)

Sunday, 2nd March 2014
Rating: 8/10

Musicians and spectators are always looking for something different. Well, Neige Morte are first-rate candidates. For one, it’s an understatement to call them interesting, peculiar, or different. Secondly, they compose marvelously dark, blatantly grim black metal! No holding back and absolutely no restrains is how Neige Morte play, as they hurl everything they’ve got into luridly obscure noise. Français for “Dead Snow,” Neige Morte may be cold, but far from dead or dull. Though, they are macabre in a most vivaciously gruesome manner.

Their second full length album, Bicephaale, is excellent in creating a sense of deadliness; it might even be poisonous. It’s more than black metal, Bicephaale is frostbiting tones and violent poetry blackened into metal and drowned in raw distortion. This hypothermic hysteria is created by the trinity of Neige Morte, who all go by their initials – vocalist XT, guitarist SA, and drummer JG.

He screams, wails, groans, and coughs. XT basically makes every type of unpleasant sound the human voice is capable of. If you’re repulsed by it, you’re probably just jealous of his audacious guts. Who else can choke like that and still sound as fierce? In “…Et Vacuité du Combat,” it (theatrically) sounds like XT is dying. After gagging on his own self-worth, choking on his own spit, and moaning in excruciating agony, XT comes fully alive about six minutes into the song. No matter how sickening it gets, wait for that six minute mark; turns out, his self-worth is that of unimpeded madness. In short, “…Et Vacuité du Combat” is bewildering, sickening, and abominably rejuvenating. The other tacks aren’t quite as bizarre, but many are equivalent in recklessness. Both “Eaters of Worlds” and “Eater of Soul” are as heinous as their titles sound. In contrast, “Plenitude…” tip-toes in a gusty winter atmosphere of skulking guitar, slushing bass, and shuddering vocals.

Bicephaale may be morbid, belligerent, horrid, and vile, but it is ingeniously made so. Neige Morte are like any abstract artists – they make eccentrically repulsive creations that, for some odd reason, you just can’t stop gazing at, or in this case, listening to.

Neige Morte official site

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