Neige Et Noirceur are a fabulous one-man project by Spiritus, with three fabulous albums on its fabulous roster (amongst two fabulous ones done via the über-fabulous Canadian label Sepulchral Productions!), a couple of fabulous splits (with e.g. Monarque, Garden Of Grief a.o.), and a couple of fabulous EP’s / singles; sounds fabulous, not?!
Gouffre Onirique Et Abîmes Cosmiques opens with the title track, and initially it does remind me a lot to the older stuff by Burzum. Raw production, distant guitar riffs with an ambient atmosphere, I cannot but dream away. And indeed, once again it is this kind of hypnotic, icy and melancholic Black Metal that does caress my eardrums, satisfies my brain, and pleases my mood. The whole album brings the kind of bleak material the scene from Quebec is known for, yet with some specific rarities. Keywords are: naturally ambient, underground, floating, spiritual, eerie, epic, Second Wave, Nordic, mystic, varied in tempo, repetitive and minimalistic, and so on, and so on… There might be some differences with most colleague-acts, like some experimental vocal lines and the addition of cosmic and / or industrial ambience, but when it comes to the whole package, atmosphere and sound included, it goes on in a very comparable vein. …maybe less Black Metal focused and more ambient, but for the better part the core is of the same kind.
I do not really see a reason why I should spent more time in enouncing my passion and appreciation for this release, this project, or the whole Quebecois scene (the latter, once more, once again; I did it a thousand times before). Some colleagues might be little more interesting (at least that’s my personal opinion), but that has to do with some self-invented preferences only.
Just take notice: if you are ‘into’ Sepulchral’s roster (or, in expanse, the Quebec-based scene), then: !!!...