Azziard – 1916
Traditionally the French have been only slightly better at attack than they are at defence. Thankfully their society has enough decay within it to have incubated what is undoubtedly one of the best scenes in the underworld. Coming to my attention recently, Azziard have clawed their way into my top three bands from France.
They manage to covertly pepper their music with explosive rounds from the Thrash cannon and also include nods to other styles as they burst into some Hardcore-like stamping riffs accompanies by Black Metal group shouting. The effect is fuckin’ superb because it remains firmly in the domain of Black Metal thanks to an utterly harsh and unusual vocal sound.
I was more than a little sceptical at their proclamation that they aspire to infuse Black/Death metal with the cold atmospheres of war and invoke the inhuman universe of WWI. So many groups think of ways to describe their music and fall way short. For once that self analysis is spot on. 1916 is cold and fucking harsh and will conjure images of rotting soldiers half buried in muddy graves, bits of frozen bloody soil and bullets flying through the air and the all permeating stench of decaying flesh. Although thankfully the helpings of Death Metal are kept to a bare minimum.
After the intro ‘Verdun’ explodes at your head like a facial shrapnel enema. It all starts at the same time with hammering drums and those vocals, like the singer is the ghost of a fallen soldier with his throat shot to shit and blood pouring from his mouth and nose onto his mustache, and ultra grumpy riffing. It gets quite technical at times which really grabs your interest as they alternate between that and more conventional passages.
The next couple of tracks rip past as if the listener has got shell shock and crouching for shelter in a blast crater in no man’s land. In the middle of the album the tracks flow seamlessly together. From ‘Défiguré’ to ‘Effondrement’ with what is probably some traditional WWI soldiers song and between ‘Effondrement’ and ‘Tranchée using an air raid siren – that never fails.
The song structures are excellent and straight to the point so it never feels like Azziard are playing for time. They have proved that France is more than capable of launching a fierce and sustained attack as 1916 doesn’t have a weak track on it which is not only an achievement but a rarity in recent years.
If you’re looking for something other than a corpse-painted shriekfest, or even if you’re not, I recommend you spend some of your cash on this album. It is superb.
Black Metal is dead. In the UK at least. Seeing as though it is the place that gave birth to the genre it is as fuckin’ useless a broke-dick dog. There is no scene to speak of, just the odd one or two equally useless bands trying in vain to mimic some of the more [...]
Opening with a song title of the length Bal Sagoth would be proud of (thankfully that’s as the only comparison to draw), the imaginatively titled ‘A Glimpse of the Image of Lucifer Gleaming Beyond the Subterraneous Black Sun’ marches forth. Mid paced, it stamps away with the precision of a well oiled Black Metal machine [...]
I liked all the tracks on myspace, especially “Verdun”.. excellent band, great find \m/