Metal may not be to everyone’s taste, but there’s no denying the songwriting and musicianship of this seventh album by the French quartet which is a powerful, engaging, elemental, stormy cri de coeur about climate change. Brothers Joe (frontman) and Mario (drummer) Duplantier grew up in a remote coastal village on the French west coast in Ondres, where they were exposed to all kinds of music and art, as well as oil washing up objects on the sand. A sense of nature being destroyed has always been deeply engrained. Heavy metal was one genre of music they didn’t get played by their parents in in the local community, but first hearing Metallica changed all that, and they are a band who could also transcend their genre, become just has huge, and thankfully, unlike James Hetfield, they are unlikely to indulge in hunting. Proceeds from the impressive single Amazonia are going to communities hurt by that region’s deforestation, and previous work has gone towards the ocean-orientated Operation Cleanup. As their lyrics put it: “The greatest miracle Is burning to the ground.” Their musical is what is termed technical metal –, as classically trained, the play complex arpeggios and rhythms, dynamic changes in pace and volume, with Another World a case in point, with its more tender coda. As metal, it’s now all grunting vocals, with Hold On more heavy rock harmonies, while the title track starts with a much softer, almost folky, chanting style, expanding in the heavier next song, which is indeed called That Chant. Into The Storm meanwhile is a tour de force in fast heavy metal guitar and the dark forces of nature unleashing itself. Massive sound for a monstrous situation and hard to ignore. Out on Roadrunner Records.
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