...SIŁA I PIĘKNO MUZYKI TKWIĄ W JEJ RÓŻNORODNOŚCI


..::OPIS::..

Argile is an apparently one-off side-project from SAS de l’Argilière and Jean-Jacques Moréac of Misanthrope (Fra) fame; and like most of what these guys ever produced it isn’t particularly easy to describe mixing doom, avant-garde, melodeath and even a hint of black metal – without mentioning a couple of extra fugitive influences.

Still if the songwriting may look versatile, anyone a tad familiar with the infamous duet is very unlikely to be surprised. Indeed, make your own opinion reading the following quick summary. Troubled by the Storm is a mere keyboards/samples intro. Satanic Music, Pyramid Paradise and to a lesser extent Danse Macabre Mist are complex tracks in the vein of Misanthrope’s early doom/avant-garde days, only a tad wiser and better produced. Pandemonic Necronomicon leans towards gothic metal. Heart of the Celestial Empire and God’s Degenerated Angel sound more like the typical hybrid of power metal and melodeath the mother band was playing at the time this album was released. In the Shadow of the Horns is a Darkthrone cover, Organ Cries of Iron a short doom interlude and eventually A Lugubrious Funeral is pure ambient.

So, have you noticed yet? For the most part the music found here isn’t fundamentally different from what Misanthrope plays, or had played by the past. Further, the track which is likely to be the best, Heart of the Celestial Empire, is also the one were the similarities are the most obvious – let’s be honest, had I been told this was a leftover from the Libertine Humiliations album I would have blindly believed it. After all, put the two Misanthrope masterminds together, what did you expect to come out except Misanthrope? Hell, you’ll even get the ritualistic “SAS de l’Argilière presents...” speech in the booklet, as in every Misanthrope record! Of course this is a less grandiloquent, less overblown, for some less cheesy Misanthrope; however it also (consequently?) looks like a blander, duller, less inspired Misanthrope.

The reasons aren’t obvious. Perhaps given it was supposed to be a more confidential release have they put less effort in the songwriting, who knows. It can’t be denied in spite of a handful of inspired riffs and memorable melodies (Pyramid Paradise...) the songs aren’t exactly of the kind which sticks into your mind. Besides, if a good half of the album is sung in the harsh exalted voice which was De l’Argilière’s standard in the early 2000’s, if we except a few black-ish shrieks the rest consists in this so annoying crying chant he’d extensively used in his early days (and is unfortunately using again nowadays) – I can’t see who could take any pleasure listening to this deliquescence, but perhaps are there amateurs somewhere. Get rid of them and a track like Satanic Music, with its cristalline acoustic parts and leaden doom background, would have sounded far better in spite of its probably unnecessarily twisted structure and probably equally unnecessarily cretin title (c’mon, even Luc Mertz hasn’t dared). Jean-Jacques Moréac, however, reveals himself as a very complete as well as competent musician, as if he sounds much sober on the bass than on the mother band’s albums (he couldn’t resist the mandatory solo in Pyramid Paradise though!) his performance behind the drumkit was less to be expected. While he might not be top-tier in terms of sheer technicality he nonetheless sounds together light, fluent and at ease in every genre, from blastbeats to standard power metal double-bassing or doom beats.

The Darkthrone cover is another strange take. That I’ve always considered Darkthrone as nothing but the most successful joke ever isn’t the point; let’s admit that the intrinsic musical qualities of In the Shadow of the Horns are downright non-existent, that without a typical raw black metal production this song is utterly worthless, and that’s exactly what happens in our present case. Further while every other song is in English, de l’Argilière here translated the original English lyrics in French for a reason which can’t be anything else than superfluous novelty. Eventually, if someone could tell me what Darkthrone has to do with anything else here I’d be grateful – it has probably as much to do as the crappy ambient trickling again so cleverly named A Lugubrious Funeral. Bleh.

Don’t get fooled, if all these comments look rather negative it’s only because considering the names involved anyone could have rightfully expected something far better and above all far more original than what they actually proposed. Overall The Monotonous Moment of a Monologue isn’t a bad album, it’s just it won’t add anything to the Misanthrope members glory. I’d thus recommend it to the Misanthrope completists only, the others being better starting with Libertine Humiliations or Misanthrope Immmortel recorded pretty much at the same time.

Sean16



..::TRACK-LIST::..

1. Troubled By The Storm 1:30
2. Satanic Music 7:08
3. Pandemonic Necronomicon 4:46
4. Pyramid Paradise 5:37
5. Heart Of The Celestial Empire 4:46
6. In The Shadow Of The Horns (Darkthrone cover) 6:09
7. Danse Macabre Mist 4:44
8. Organ Cries Of Iron 1:09
9. A Lugubrious Funeral 6:15
10. God's Degenerated Angel 5:46



..::OBSADA::..

Vocals, Guitar, Soloist - S.A.S. de l'Argilière
Bass, Drums, Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, Keyboards - Jean-Jacques Moréac

Guitar, Acoustic Guitar - Jonathan Alonso (tracks: 2, 3, 6)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTXw8eo7w80


SEED 15:00-22:00.
POLECAM!!!