Pensées Nocturnes - Douce Fange (2022)

Why is it the most distinctly and/or disturbingly French black metal bands have the initials P. N.? Paris' Pensées Nocturnes might not answer that question with their seventh full-length Douce fange, but they will once again answer the calling of carnival-fresh, aurally anarchic and murderous black metal with a sax section, and they will answer that calling in an even more brazen way than on their 2019 oddity Grand Guignol Orchestra. This is a strange, STRANGE sound the group has put together, not only in how the metal content fuses with the other instruments and the almost tongue-in-cheek, mocking nature of its presentation, but in how they use a lot of bizarre, gonzo jazz elements with the brass and drumming that sound just as alien on their own cognizance.

Douce fange is a chaotic but controlled clutter of traditional black metal guitar aesthetics, wavering and haunting vocal lines that sound like a drunken street hawker, and the added confusion of all the brass that make it sound like a stinking circus stuffed down some Parisian back alley in the early 20th century. In general, the compositions are lurching, non-linear and completely inconsiderate of what arrangements your mind wishes to mold them into, but it's also consistently compelling. New tricks arrive at almost every street stall or corner, with more narrative spurts of vocals in native French, or eerier, dissonant atmospheric guitars. The bass playing has a fantastic, fat sound to it which rumbles around the shifting tides of the riffs, and the drummer sounds like he stepped in for a Miles Davis album and got a bunch of metal freaks instead, but then rises to the challenge. There are some truly intense and ridiculous passages like in "PN mais Costaud!" where the double bass starts going crazy and there's this whole array of wild screaming and growls along with the confusing but somehow structured guitar patterns, all to disappear into some softer tremolo picked lines, samples and horns, and it's that manic few measures that really sum up the album.

You've got to steel yourself for Douce fange, but its rewarding for its fearsome and lollygagging contrasts, and its not like the band just stumbled upon this, because the previous album was sort of a trial run for this mutation in the band's career. The production is very well balanced despite the almost sweltering randomness of how the tunes are laid out, and even the packaging lives up to the music with its collages of weird billets and advertisements for oddities and social unrest. Trust me, this is a CD booklet unlike any other you'll see this year, and it's quite impressive. I'm sure there's quite a lot to the concepts here I'm not fully understanding, even my wife who speaks French and lived there for a year was a little baffled. The schizophrenic and freeform nature of this music is one of a kind, and I find I keep picking out more details with each listen. It's like Shining and Mr. Bungle jamming while they all twirl a bunch of moustaches. Looney bin brilliance.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

https://penseesnocturnes.bandcamp.com/

Pensées Nocturnes - Grand Guignol Orchestra (2019)

Frenchmen Pensées Nocturnes have long been thinking beyond the bounds of traditional black metal, but their latest, 6th album Grand Guignol Orchestra trades in a bit of the Romantic flourish of prior efforts for a more intense, abrasive experience which certainly rises up to the packaging displayed before you. Yes, this is essentially a circus-like black metal record, digging up a middle ground between Peste Noire and Mr. Bungle, and every bit as disturbing as that idea implies. The freakish cover clowns and the excellent graphic design put together between the band and Les Acteurs de L'ombre is an excellent vehicle for the themes explored, and I feel as if the album is far more committed to this warped, canvased sound than prior effort like Arcturus' Las Masquerade Infernale.

Now, to be clear, this is not an album I heavily enjoyed, but rather one I appreciated for its aesthetic aspirations. This is truly calamitous, unapologetic black metal that has been thoroughly kneaded with horns and other instrumentation that casts a mid-20th century, back alley carnival shadow...a place that would allure you with its glowing lights and euphoric festivities, but not one you'd want to bring your kids to for fear they would be devoured by its attractions. Trumpets, bass lines, organs, various levels of distorted guitars, tuba tones, all manner of whirring and whizzing percussion and a vocal range that is cast through morbid rasps and howls, and cleaner, boisterous tones much like a circus caller or a ringleader attempting to stir up his audience. There is so much flying at you through these tracks that they can become a whirling labyrinth of confusion, a magic mirror-house of torture. And it takes a particular level of skill to arrange all this, to be able to successfully supplant the traditional instrumentation of this metal niche so evenly with the other instruments, above a constant rhythmic battery that is very impressive with the strutting, grooving bass guitars and drum kit.

No, there is no lack of effort herein, and in general I very much dug the carnival parts like the thumping segues in "Comptine à boire" or the frightening freakshow nostalgia evinced through the opening crawl of "Triste sade", but when it comes to the metal content, it almost loses itself to the rest of the experience. Which is sort of the point, I'll grant you, but it wouldn't have hurt to have a few really catchy guitar lines vomited forth that could compete with the great horns and the unwavering, schizophrenic vocal performance. Occasionally the album becomes just too calamitous and 'extreme', like a Naked City record on a post-black, spazzcore bender, and while the intensity is cool, I wish the music itself stuck to the memory a little more. However, Grand Guignol Orchestra is such a damn cool, visionary sort of album, so conceptually successful that I'd be remiss not to recommend it highly to those seeking something on the outside, a bevy of childhood nightmares given flesh through an abusive, murderous adult musical palette. Something wicked this way fucking comes, with a painted smile and a bloody, spiked bludgeon. A ticket could be your last.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/PNRecords/