Heir - Au peuple de l'abîme (2017)

From reviewing their split with In Cauda Venenum and Spectrale last year, I was already prepared for the sort of onslaught Heir was going to manifest. Now, after surviving their full-length debut Au peuple de l'abîme I can attest to the fact that there are no surprises here, the experience is quite consistent with the previous material, an ungodly amalgam of blasted, rasping black metal and sludgier aesthetics that generally dominate the slower passages throughout the record. Granted, at either of these styles alone, the band proves competent, but where this album goes a little further is to vary up the material even more than that, with slower, atmospheric passes in which the drums die down to a din, and some cleaner guitars and bass lines are allowed to conjure up a realm of graceful contrast.

And I'll say it, if NOT for those particular passages, and where they're strung out about the rather lengthy tracks (all around 7-9 minutes), I might have taken away a lot less from the band. When they are launching into their utmost momentum, you're getting a very stripped, noisy, filthy take on traditional black metal which often errs on the side of pure aggression, with little distinct note variation, like the opening to "Au siècle des siècles"; occasionally with a better, more melodic note selection as you'll hear in "L'heure d'Hélios". The mid-paced or slow parts center in on a lot of jangly dissonant notes picked over steady, simple beats and crashing chugs and chords, sometimes letting the nihilistic barks of the frontman sneer out over a very simple, eerie backdrop. This latter portion of the album is almost unanimously my favorite, a lot more evocative of fear and uncertainty than when they're off into a full froth frenzy, but then again those moments of the album also create a strange psychological give and take, as if you were being lulled with drugs and then jolted back into a heart pounding state of conscious awareness.

Don't get me wrong, there are places where these two aesthetic poles collide down the middle, and Au peuple de l'abîme transforms into a truly well-rounded outing, especially where they bust out some unexpected, warmer feeling, glorious element like the bridge to "Meltem". While not a technical or complex record by any means, there are plenty of ideas here, and the band is cautious to implement them without overwhelming the fundamental sounds of the genres in which they meddle and mash. I don't know that I always felt the patience to enjoy the entirety of these tracks, but at the very least Heir does enough to deviate from excessive repetition and there are more than enough moments of elation through the 40 that they've written. Perhaps this is not quite a band at the level of eclectic aural stimulation as peers like Blut Aus Nord, but they are certainly worthy of reaching more ears than they currently do, and Au peuple de l'abîme is a substantial first album with enough replay value to leave its mark, and enough potential to build off.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

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In Cauda Venenum/Heir/Spectrale split (2016)

Here's a pretty interesting split released through the Emanations imprint of Les Acteurs de l'Ombre Productions, featuring a number of French bands, one of which (In Cauda Venenum) has already released their debut through the label last year. The stylistic representation here is a mix of black metal, post-black and sludge aesthetics, but the way the track list has been splayed out is to have the bands alternate between tracks, rather than simply take up 'sides' or 'chunks' of the play length all to themselves. Ultimately, one would hope that this means the materials will all flow together into one conceptual whole, but I actually found that while the genres really don't stray too distant from the three I had mentioned, that the differences in production values between the tracks can be rather disjointed, and where the riffing of the songs dives too deep into one particular area it also can create a little bit of an imbalance to the recording as a whole.

That said, I did not find much of the material here particularly unpleasant. In fact, the more ambient sequences, like Spectrale's "Sagittarius A" or the acoustic "Al Ashfar" and "Crepuscule" are quite nice, even if offset by the cruder bowels of sludgy, doomy, driving black metal, which peaks on the nearly 10-minute affront "Upon the Masses", a tune which at times seems like Altar of Plagues channeling Black Sabbath, streams of tremolo bleeding erupting from drudging, downtrodden chord swells. Their closer "Sectarism" is another highlight, with a more dissonant post-metal structure that also summons up a lot of those tremolo picked sequences. In Cauda Venenum, on the other hand, only contribute one piece, a 14+ minute remake of "Laura Palmer's Theme" from Badalamenti's Twin Peaks soundtrack, patched together from samples, long and sparse passages featuring a lot of sparse and dramatic instrumentation, driven by tinny beats and contrasted to sludgy distortion and a couple melodic black metal ruptures which compare closely enough to some of Heir's writing. The vocals used across the album are generally a rasp which can be repressed by the volume and tone of the other instruments, but consistent enough with a lot of what you'll hear from the post-black scene.

Heir really brings up the heavy end, especially during those double bass batteries in "Upon the Masses", while Spectrale serves as a sort of polar opposite, and In Cauda's Venenum's 'cover' interpretation bridges between the two poles. There are some intense, emotional moments strewn throughout its landscape, although conceptually it seems a little scattered...if the bands had just been produced/mixed a little closer to one another in tone, it could have been more effective as a solitary listening experience. But surely I've heard split recordings which are much more awkward and random than the pairing here, and there's a raunchy elegance here which kept me elevated past the potential boredom the longer tracks might have evoked. Not terribly resonant or catchy, but it was not absent of those passionate rushes of notes and atmosphere that put groups like Agalloch, Alcest and their peers on the radar of an audience looking for something graceful and gazy; these qualities are simply sandwiched between the acoustics of one of the participants and a tendency from Heir to delve further into pure black metal when it serves them.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

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