In Cauda Venenum - G.O.H.E. (2020)

In Cauda Venenum is a French group that focuses heavily on creating swollen soundscapes which incorporate black metal, post-black leanings, and a cello into something sweeping and dramatic, with the intention that the listeners grow ever immersed and lost in its reveries of harsh but alluring sound. The last time I encountered them was their rendition of Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks piece "Laura Palmer's Theme" which they put out on a 3-way split some years ago, but the structure to this new album G.O.H.E. much resembles their s/t debut from 2015, with two tracks clocking in at over 21 minutes length. This is a LOT of space to fill with something captivating, and while this sophomore does have a few moments of elevation, I'm not sure the bulk of the material really ekes out its existence in the most memorable of manners.

It's certainly a classy vibe with the chords thundering forth and the cello strings gliding above them, or the pianos, and they do a fantastic job of making that all feel so natural within the parameters of their style. Where I felt it fell behind was in the riffing selection...these all flow well enough, but they just never stick individually, so it's the sort of album which I could only appreciate on an atmospheric level. The drums do shift things up, and there are some nice segues here which balance off the instruments and seem to set up the next wall of sound for the post-black riffage, but the music never seems to climax quite enough with its choice in melodies, so it always seems like it's a swell of incidental music from some modern art film, just enough of a chord change to set a mood but without the visuals you'd see on a screen it doesn't really dazzle that much. The murky rasping vocals are executed well enough, and I believe they are sometimes doubled up which creates this creepy, fulfilling presence, but this also could have benefited from a stronger set of riffs below it.

The two tracks do have plenty of similarities, although the second, "Délivrance" centers more on a doomed, crawling gate and a slightly more interesting riff-set, plus a nice swerve into pure neo-classical terrain which I thought was one of the more heartening points on the whole record. Still, though, both sides feel heavily bloated; without the fascinating twists and turns required to create a compelling narrative structure, I felt like I was just listening to two halves of a very level plain, without any real secrets hidden upon it. Soothing occasionally on the surface level, but without the hypnotizing depths that I need to fix my attention. I dig the esoteric style, and there's nothing wrong with this as sheer mood music, but I'd love to hear them with a more engaging attack, perhaps more ferocity from the black metal influences and higher highlights of grace with the cello and melodies.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://incdvnnm.bandcamp.com/

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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https://www.facebook.com/spectrale.bx/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf