MOONREICH - Fugue

7 songs
53:53 minutes
***** ****
Les Acteurs de l'Ombre

Bandpage

These days, black metal band either try to reinvent or adhere faithfully to the recipes of the olden days. And then, at rare times, you come across one of those few bands that seem to have found their own niche somewhere in between. Moonreich from somewhere around Paris in France have been founded ten years ago, and are now back with their fourth longplayer Fugue, coming three years after its predecessor Pillars Of Detest. Band founder Weddir has hired all new musicians, usually a risky endeavour, but after listening repeatedly to Fugue, I must say it works out for the best.

The new album starts with the title track Fugue, which is subdivided into the two parts Everytime She Passes Away and Everytime The Earth Slips Away, running together for seventeen generous minutes. While this is not exactly a progressive black metal track, it still comes with enough different moods and movements to make sure that you get an incredibly varied slab of powerful black metal. The production is super tight, the rhythm section provides a strong foundation on which the guitars scream like mad banshees, and the vocals, while being extra evil, never descend into the silliness of mere screeching. At seven and a half minutes, the following With Open Throat For Way Too Long continues in that direction of vital black metal full of surprising twists and turns. The middle of the album is graced by Heart Symbolism, at five and a half minutes the album’s shortest piece. This is a more straightforward track with astonishingly lots of groove that even flirts with hardcore punk in a way. And back to more complex black metal with the seven-minute-long Rarefaction, a heady stew that will leave you out of breath. Carry That Drought Cause I Have No Arms Anymore offers more of the same, with again some catchier parts thanks to the excellent guitar work. And at six minutes it’s another of the quartet’s more concise tracks, before the nearly eleven-minute-long The Things Behind The Moon ends the album with another behemoth of a killer track.

So yes, in some ways, Fugue can be labelled a progressive black metal album, but its unrelenting power which comes from borrowing elements from death metal and hardcore make sure that Fugue is first and forward something to move your gut, and only on a secondary level something to pique your brain. It’s a best of both worlds situation, and that might be a smart way to collect fans from all kinds of the black metal listenership. If you desire your black metal muscular and brainy at the same time, Moonreich are one of the few bands that can treat you with both.