Gris - À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée...

Artist: Gris

Album: À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée..

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Label: Sepulchral Productions

Genre: black metal

Release Date: July 9^th 2013

À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée... was almost 6 years in the making, and is the second album of Canadian band Gris. After releasing Il Était une Forêt... Icare and Neptune set out for another venture into their emotional depths.

By now, “emotional depths” sounds like a hollow marketing-term. So many black metal bands recently have been fishing in the same pond, that my expectations for Gris were not really high.

But À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée... has swept me off my feet. With 2 discs, of mirroring songs, the album clocks in at over 80 minutes, but at no point this becomes boring or predictable – instead, I found myself completely carried away into the melancholic black metal of Icare and Neptune.

On À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée... Icare provides vocals, drums and cello, and Neptune

guitars, bass and violin. The music floats from classical and acoustic to eruptions of black metal. Most bands that try to implement classical elements fall short of keeping the balance in their tracks. Gris has found the delicate balance between aggressive black metal and deeply melancholic classical music (with hints of jazz) that make everything sound like a logical consequence of eachother. All is drenched in emotion, and the black metal parts are simply surges of panic and destruction that follow from the sad and melancholic classical parts.

The vocals are your typical black metal screams, filled with agony, and with that typical raw edge of unfinished prodcution that we know from black metal. The melodic guitar parts ache with longing, and here and there we could draw the parallel to Opeth's Blackwater Park in atmosphere.

All fans of (black) metal should check out Gris. Most likely, À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée... is the best black metal album of 2013. Highly recommended.

Buy Gris - l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée... via Sepulchral Productions.