Last week we ran a look-back at Eryn Non Dae‘s striking 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa, and then followed that with an interview of the band’s terrific bass player Mika André. In the interview, we asked Mika if he would recommend some other French metal bands that we might not know about here in the U.S. of A. He obliged, and of course we had to go check them out. Two of his choices hit us in the sweet spot. You might dig ’em too, so here goes:

DOPPLeR

DOPPLeR (pictured above) is a three-man band that hails from Lyon and appears to have been playing since 1998 — and their years of experience show in the music. The line up is Yann Coste on drums, Xavier Amado on bass, and Yoann Brière on guitar/vocals. Their latest album, Songs to defy, was released in the fall of 2008 by SKrecords. So much for the hard data. What do they sound like?

Here’s a string of genre labels, all of which roughly suit some of what’s going on in Songs to defy: progressive, experimental, noise rock, hardcore, punk, tribal. But while you can slap a genre label on some bands and that tells you about all you need to know, it doesn’t work here because, as the album title suggests, these songs defy labels.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »