Gris
À l’Âme Enflammée, l’Äme Constellée…
Sepulchural Productions
Street: 07.09
Gris = Godspeed You! Black Emperor + Sombres Forêts
Depressive suicidal black metal is hardly a genre one would associate with innovation and variety, yet Gris continue to defy expectations on À l’Âme Enflammée, l’Äme Constellée… Divided not-so-evenly between calm, meditative acoustic passages and precisely the sort of aching black metal riffs that give the genre its name, Gris both embrace and defy their genre. While I’m not as much a fan of the black metal end of Gris, their acoustic segments are extremely well arranged, and their sparse instrumentation conveys a sense of loneliness and loss far more effectively than their tremolo-picked guitars. In a sense, this album understands that there must be a balance between these two elements, peppering each song generously with examples of both sides of their sound. I’d sooner listen to this album than any other DSBM album released in the last five years. –Henry Glasheen