AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CARCOLH — “TWILIGHT OF THE MORTALS”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 122025
 

(written by Islander)

Carcolh is the name of a mythical beast from French folklore, a large snail-like serpent that oozed slime and grasped with hairy tentacles. Carcolh is also the name of a powerhouse French doom metal band from Bordeaux/Herbignac. They have two albums to their credit so far, and are about to have a third one released on February 14th by Sleeping Church Records. Its name is Twilight of the Mortals.

Thankfully, the band and the label didn’t put too much weight on the name of our site — because Carcolh‘s Sebastien Fanton sings the words (in a voice that is truly spine-tingling) — and so we have been invited, and have happily agreed, to premiere the entire album today.

The new album is an honorable devotional to the old gods of traditional doom metal, but with a steadfast orientation toward musical narratives that earn the adjective “epic.” As we discuss in greater detail below, they have created dynamic music that is earth-quaking in its heaviness, pulse-pounding in its surges, and melodically sinister and stricken, glorious and gutting. We venture to predict that it won’t be soon forgotten. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CARCOLH

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 302021
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks spoke with Quentin Aberne, guitarist of the French doom band Carcolh, whose second album The Life and Works of Death was released last month by Sleeping Church Records.)

There are few bands with whom we have had close relationships through years despite their status and activity. It’s kind of an exception to the rule indeed. It was 2013 when we did an interview with the Bordeaux-based traditional doom band Marble Chariot for Doom Metal Front magazine, and we’ve kept in touch ’til now even though the band was reincarnated by most of its lineup as Carcolh.

Named after a grotesque mythical mix of tentacled dragon and snail, Carcolh provides pure old and good traditional doom. And as their debut album Rising Sons Of Saturn (2018) tended to be a promising start, the new full-length work The Life And Works Of Death is a full-scale doom invasion, a balm for the mortal wounds of replete doom-eaters.

We had a nice talk with Carcolh’s guitarist Quentin Aberne, and I invite you now to learn more of Carcolh and their ways.

Continue reading »