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Band: Woest
Album title: La Fin de L’ere Sauvage
Release date: 21 January 2017
Label: Self-Released
01. Le froid efface
02. Tout s'écroule
03. La fin de l'ère sauvage
04. Noir
05. Moelleuse et tiède
06. Toundra
From Marseille (France) rises one of the most inhuman blackened acts that I heard lately, their name is Woest, and what we have here is their debut release named La Fin de L’ere Sauvage. The album in question is actually a self produced demo release. This band identifies itself with the industrial/doom metal genre and adds a lot of black metal elements as well. Basically on this record you'll hear an abundant use of synths, samplers and electronic drums that are predominantly present, as well as low-pitched guitars with cyclic riffs, which repeat endlessly along the generally long tracks. The pace is often doomy, slow, with low-tuned guitars and a lot of "thicker" sounds.
What will you find in this album? Exactly what it's described, the junction of these three styles. Black metal elements such as typical tremolo picked guitar riffs converge with kind of desolate sludgy treble guitar amps, and as expected and needed the drum beats are strong, sometimes fast and with some blast beats like in the track "Tout s'écroule". The vocals mingle into kind of black/industrial side with growls and desperate shrieks. Still I don't find in here that much of traditional nordic black metal style, the whole thing is quite modern in some strange sick sense, yet I could say that it would be more like a progressive black metal in certain parts with prevalent industrial/doom style in others. Some clean vocals are used as well to make the whole thing more dynamic and interesting. The bass is powerful, reverberate and starts the first track, "Le froid efface", which is nicely coming along with hypnotic vocals that blend well with grim screams while the ritualistic atmospheric gaze comes from the synthesizers.
Some tracks are almost epic, with parts that lead to a more slow route, mid-tempo melodic guitars and leads. The album’s tone is all over psychotic, undoubtedly very obscure, sometimes the whole thing is even at the edge of becoming militaristic, especially in the hypnotizing track "Moelleuse et tiède". But this music is for lovers of this style, because it is very electronic to say, but still absolutely black, even so the boys certainly reached their goal. In addition, the thing that bothers me the most is that sometimes it sounds like an old demo from late 80s or early 90s, recorded in a garage. No matter what, Woest still should be admired, because their debut release certainly shows a lot of effort and without any doubt potential is here. In a way Woest gave us with this release a dose of true underground as it perhaps should be and undoubtedly offers us something differet, an interesting mix of dark styles, but still I would really like to hear them with better production. My favorite tracks are "Tout s'Ecroule" and "Toundra".
Review written by: Felin Frost
Rating: 7/10
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