Recommended for fans of: LLNN, Amenra, Regarde Les Hommes Tomber
French quartet Demande à la poussière, having formed in 2017 and released their first album in 2018, have spent the last several years defining and refining a sound for themselves which combines the doom-laden density of Sludge and the haunting atmospheric heaviness of Post-Metal with a substantial Black Metal edge.
And with the recent release of their third album, Kintsugi, at the beginning of last month, now felt like the perfect time to take a comprehensive look at their already impressive back-catalogue.
2018 – DEMANDE À LA POUSSIÈRE
Even on their debut it was clear that Demande à la poussière already had a clear idea of who, and what, they wanted to be, with the churning riffs and abrasive atmospheric edges of opener “L’univers” – a song which builds not towards a cathartic crescendo but instead descends towards a desolately bleak anti-climax – quickly laying down the blueprint for the rest of the album.
Even at this early stage, however, said blueprint was less about restricting the band to a singular sound or pre-established style – listen, if you will, to the pulsing, blast et groove attack of “Le lendemain” and the moodier, doomier strains of “Étranglé” (whose humongous conclusion is well worth the wait) as they, in quick succession, switch from the sort of sludge-drenched Black Metal that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Celeste record to more expansive, atmosphere-heavy style reminiscent of early Amenra – and more about testing the limits of what they could sound like.
This does mean, of course, that the band’s self-titled album doesn’t always hybridise the group’s ideas and influences as seamlessly as they would go on to do, preferring instead to allow individual tracks to lean a little more one way or the other as the album develops (both “L’unique certitude” and “Le parfum des cités perdues”, for example, err towards the noisier, sludgier side of the group’s repertoire, albeit with the former throwing some unusual and esoteric elements into the mix, while the slow-burning “Accroché” opts for a more overty Post-Metal inspired approach which builds from calm to crushing over the course of just over five minutes).
Heaving, waves of sludgy sound are the name of the game with “Condamné” – a song which conceals some unsettlingly chaotic Black Metal and/or Hardcore vibes beneath its grime-soaked grooves and brutish, bellowing vocals – after which the unsettling ambient soundscapes of “360°” end things with the sort of droning desolation that the likes of Locrian or Hope Drone would be more than happy to call their own.
2021 – QUIÉTUDE HOSTILE
Right from the very beginning, as the opening drone of “Léger Goût De Soufre” gives way to a series of pounding, Post-Metal riffs and angular, blackened chord shapes – all topped off with a gnarlier, snarlier vocal performance and an electrifying atmospheric aura – you can tell that Quiétude Hostile is an altogether more holistically complete and even more carefully crafted piece of work than its predecessor.
That’s not to say that the individual tracks don’t have their own identities – the grim grind of “Morphème” and the surge ‘n’ stomp of “Éréthisme”, for example, combine the band’s Post-Black influences (think The Great Old Ones and Regarde Les Hommes Tomber) with their more obvious Post-Metal side, but do so in strikingly different ways – but the album as a whole seems, more than ever, to be built upon a core sound of its own.
And that core is even darker, and even denser, than ever here, especially during the album’s massively heavy title-track – which combines some of the band’s hardest hitting moments yet with some of the most eerie and unsettling passages of their career – and the doom-laden, tremolo-driven (and, at the end at least, blast-driven) “Bois de Justice”.
At the same time, however, they’ve also further expanded both their sonic palette and their song-craft, as epitomised by the patiently proggy, majestically multi-textured “Perdu” (which successfully explores some similar musical and emotional territory as latter-day Amenra) and the melodic/metallic, light-and-shade, give-and-take of “L’Oubli Du Contrasté”, which sees the band pushing the (Post) Black Metal side of their sound to its logical extreme, without abandoning their Sludge and/or Post-Metal aspirations in the process (with the drums, in particular, balancing and blending both sets of influences seamlessly).
It all ends with the group’s longest, and most ambitious, composition yet – nine minutes of slowly building momentum and almost unrelenting weight (punctuated by eruptions of blasting belligerence and infused with strands of squalling saxophone courtesy of White Ward‘s Dima Dudko) which goes by the name “Expiravit” – that concludes things with a moody, minimalist promise of even better things to come!
2024 – KINTSUGI
With a slight shift in line-up, and a slight shift in approach as a consequence, Kintsugi may not be quite the album you were expecting (especially considering the way that Quiétude Hostile) ended, but it’s still very much a Demande à la poussière album… only bigger, bolder, and more aggressive.
Comparisons with the likes of LLNN and Conjurer are certainly more apt than ever this time around, whether in regards to the gloomy grooves and doom-ridden riffs of opener “Inapte” or the spasming blastbeats and grinding guitars (plus some rather tasteful acoustic embellishments during the outro) of the visceral title-track (which is, by some margin, one of the most extreme and intense songs the band have ever written).
Even so, it’s not like Demande à la poussière have totally abandoned their roots or transformed into a totally different band, by any means – they’re still the same monstrous mix of Sludge, Doom, Black, and Post-Metal at their core – it’s just that they’ve become an even heavier, even more aggressive version of themselves, as the ground ‘n’ pound, chug-heavy attack of “La parabole des aveugles” and the punishing percussion and seething tremolo of “Ichinawa” both demonstrate.
They are, however, still just as capable of stunning their listener with their use of space and atmosphere and sparse melody, with the weighty ambience of “Le sens du vent” (a personal favourite of mine, not least due to its moody, morose bass-lines), the simmering Post-Black bleakness of “Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat”, and the doomy delights of “Attrition” (another major favourite) all combining and contrasting the band’s newfound intensity with some intensely introspective moments that only serve to enhance the whole experience.
The back end of the album continues in a similar vein – “Fragmenté” is five minutes of auditory and emotional heaviness, with a beautifully brooding mid-section, the multi-layered “Miserere” (another highlight) is equal parts crushing and calm (like the very best of Amenra), and “Brisé” blends gargantuan riffs and gloomy melody in a roiling cauldron of cathartic Post-Metal – all culminating in the haunting atmospheric “Partie” which ends the album on a hauntingly, and fittingly, desolate note.