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THE FRENCH METAL INVASION

 Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 2:30pm by

french_frogLazy journalism comparisons to Gojira be damned, there is some damn fine metal coming out of France these days. Whether or not that has anything to do with Gojira laying the groundwork for French bands to gain wider recognition in America is up for debate, but the facts are the facts: good metal = happy Vince.

  • Gorod: I’ve chronicled my love of this band in this space before. If you like tech-death firestorms, you oughtta check this band out; their new record Process of a New Decline is a juicy, explosion of head-dizzying technical death metal.
  • Hacride: More in the progressive/Opethian veign of the death metal spectrum, Hacride blend Meshuggian groove with the melody and aggression of the aforementioned Swedish death metal kings. Their new album Lazarus is available now.
  • Eryn Non Dae: END.’s is certainly influenced by Meshuggah as well, but theirs is a more raw, visceral, dissonant, groove-laden take on what Hacride do. Axl just posted a trippy video of theirs last week which you should check out.

So that’s that. Get your France on.

-VN

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  • Rida

    Hasn’t this been posted before? One band you guys overlook is Trepalium, toured with Gojira at one point. Amazing groove/prog/death band

  • Shinaain

    Funny you should mention this, since I when I told Biff on the Nergal interview thread that I had been distracted from checking out Vader by other things, I was referring to the wave of French metal bands I had been newly introduced to.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/-/676756844 Мирослав Денковски

    Pitbulls In The Nursery?

    Check them out ;)

    • Ziltoid

      They get boring quickly, but every once in awhile PitN is very fun to listen to. Definitely worth at least checking out. I believe they have an EP on their website for download.

  • Biff Tannen

    No mention of Deathspell Omega, Antaeus, or Peste Noire?
    “Si Monumentum …..” is Deathspell’s best, but I bet Vince and Axl would love their most recent album, “Fas Maledictum……” If Gorguts/Cryptopsy were even more technical/chaotic and carried a black metal vibe, this is what it would hope to sound like.
    Check it out

  • BEZOAR

    Benighted anyone? Good call on PITN, they rule.

    • Ziltoid

      BENIGHTED! FINALLY, A GOOD FUCKING BAND MENTIONED IN THE COMMENTS!

      All of their albums are top-notch, with Icon being a true masterpiece. How can anyone not like them? Just try to listen to a song like “Foetus” or “Slut.” Easy to enjoy, yet there are enough subtleties and changes that it’s never monotonous and boring. Also, they actually know how to do a correct breakdown (a rare feat!), as evidenced in Foetus.

      • iolanach

        YES. “Icon” is one of the best death metal albums ever done, hands down. Perfect from star to finish. Awesome band, magnificent album.

        • Wrecking Balls

          Benighted are a great band! Just plain fun to listen to!

  • Io

    I’ve been all about French groove lately (aka “the Gojira effect”). Hollow Corp, Hypno5e, Outcast, Mistaken Element, Minus Human, and Ananta. Also, the guy from JenX sounds exactly like Joseph.

    Lastly, a necessary shout out for BENIGHTED.

    • Ziltoid

      I’ll just echo what I said above:

      BENIGHTED! UGHH!

      Much better than the overdone “SLAYERRRRR UGH!”

  • Ziltoid

    I’ll pimp Kalisia this time. They’re a progressive death metal band (although not very deathy), with an EP for download in their website from 1995. From then until 2006 or so, the worked on a 70 minute song (separated into 20 tracks) called “Cybion”. After lots of delays, It finally got released this year and is quite great. It’s an amazing sci-fi exploration of the development and destruction of a world. Also, the bonus disc has their EP remastered, and 4 cover songs, (Cynic, Dream Theater, Emperor, Loudblast) all of which are amazing, especially the cover of Cynic’s “How Could I”. Also, all over the album there are a bundle of guest performances by the likes of Paul Masvidal (Cynic), Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon), Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy), and many others.

    http://metal-archives.com/band.php?id=4985

    ^There’s their M-A page.

    • Canvas Of Flesh

      I have Cybion and it is, indeed, downright awesome.

    • groverXIII

      This album has been sitting on my hard drive for a month… I’m having issues getting it tagged properly. Guess I need to keep trying.

  • http://www.theheavyduty.com d e v o n

    I’ve also heard good things about Years of No Light, a French post-metal/Isis/Cult of Luna/Pelican/Mouth of the Architect type o’ band.

    • los

      Year of No Light’s “Nord” is one of my favorite albums ever. Definitely track it down and give it a listen.

      • Lybrium

        haha nice genre-fail. Year of no Light is awesome shit. Im really surprised there is hardly a mention of Scarve and Daboga here.

  • Watty

    Hacride is amazing…that is all.

  • ApparentAptitude

    Fractal Gates?

  • kirk

    Not super metal, but Year Of No Light’s album “Nord” was pretty amazing.

  • iolanach

    More great French metal bands (besides the already mentioned Benighted, Gorod and Hacride):

    Dungortheb (tech death)
    Carcariass (ditto)
    Hectic Patterns (skull crushing death metal)
    Kronos (ditto)
    Yyrkoon (double ditto)

    • Wrecking Balls

      Yyrkoon indeed…excellent stuff!
      Not really metal per se, but has anyone here heard Joe from Gojira’s old side project band, Empalot? Sounds kind of like Gojira filtered through Mr. Bungle.

      • Shinaain

        I FREAKING LOVE THAT FREAKING BAND!!! Although, on the contrary: (1) Joe and Mario both participated in that band, and (2) it’s been labeled “terroir métal” (whatever the fuck that means). What I’m getting at is that the band incorporated metal, but it didn’t hold itself to that classification….or pretty much any other classification, for that matter.

        I can’t imagine that if Cirque du Soleil and The B-52′s got together and started a band, that they would be any more fun (or bad-ass) than Empalot. I think the guys need to get the band back together when Gojira comes off the road at the end of the year, if only for a one-off show for New Years.

        For the uninitiated, start here: http://www.myspace.com/empalot

  • Wrecking Balls

    For some very interesting, out-there, bizarre french metal check out the album “France” from the band Wormfood.

    http://www.myspace.com/wormfood

    http://www.metalreview.com/Reviews/2172/Wormfood-France.aspx

  • http://spinelanguage.wordpress.com/ spinelanguage

    Scarve, Trepalium, and Gomory deserve a bump too.

    • Wrecking Balls

      And don’t forget LoudBlast

  • djabthrash

    Guys you should check out EYELESS :

    http://www.myspace.com/eyeless

  • http://buttor.blogspot.com Buttor

    You should check out Bukowski, Hangman’s Chair and God Damn in a more Rock/Stoner/Metal à la Down genre…

  • Metal Dick

    Well being frenc let me tell you we always had a metal scene with more or less decent bands (80 – ADX, Satan’s Jokers, Trust 90′s Massacra, Crusher Loudblast Aggrssor late 90′s Misanthrope, Iceland Gojira called Godzilla back then ….) The thinkg is unlike our other European neighbiuyrg we never supported them or even gave a tr’as ass about them. For some od reason lots of people beleive that our local stuff sucks even before listenng to it.
    Bands worth checking not mentionned yet: Kickback, Vorkreist and Herrschaft.
    PS: love the frog ha ha

  • chtimixeur

    Mass Hysteria are awesome. They’re not really metal (they’re more of a Static-X band), but they opened for Metallica in Nimes a few weeks ago

  • Shinaain

    Nearly forgot to mention yesterday: People are always trying to get the Gojira guys to drop names, particularly in regards to French metal bands to check out. (I guess that’s what happens when you’ve unwittingly become the de facto ambassadors for French metal. Oh, and when people want to find a way to work Randy Blythe’s name into a interview.) Other than Trepalium and a few others mentioned above, they frequently mention Dagobah and Ultra Vomit. They usually say there are too many to mention, but Trepalium, Dagobah, and Ultra Vomit are the 3 they seem to mention the most. In the Metal Injection interview from 2007 where Randy interviewed Joe and Mario, they also named-dropped a band whose French name I can’t pronounce, but Joe said translated into English as “Big Tits.” Maybe Metal Dick can enlighten us on that one, lol?

    I notice that a lot of the bands coming out of France that are getting the most recognition and the most people talking seem to be the ones who lean harder towards the prog end of the spectrum. Which is cool with me, since that’s usually my thing. I’m just saying.

    • djabthrash

      “In the Metal Injection interview from 2007 where Randy interviewed Joe and Mario, they also named-dropped a band whose French name I can’t pronounce, but Joe said translated into English as “Big Tits.” Maybe Metal Dick can enlighten us on that one, lol?”

      -> That gotta be GRONIBARD, in the early days they did some joking around porn grindcore, and now it’s just some plain joking around metal/grind.

      • Shinaain

        With their French accents, it sounded something like “Goony Bah” to me, but Gronibard seems about right. Sounds hilarious. Probably worth checking out, if for nothing more than the novelty value. Thanks!

  • Fong Chung

    I LOOOOOOVE Deathspell Omega, and Pitbulls In The Nursey isn’t bad havent listened to them much lately. Gorod is pretty damn good. Gojira bores me. Benighted rocks pretty hard, my friend is a friend of there’s and huge fan. Need to listen to more frog metal.

  • groverXIII

    MOTHER FUCKING GOROD. ‘Process Of A New Decline’ would be my album of the year if it weren’t for Clutch. Hacride, Fractal Gates, and Pitbulls In The Nursery are also quite good. And I’m going to check into Benighted.

  • Shinaain

    Just read a May 2009 interview where Mario and Christian of Gojira name-dropped a band called Sleeppers [sic].

    Also, Jean-Michel digs a band called Supuration/S.U.P.

    Can’t vouch for any of these bands since I haven’t checked them out yet, but they’re queued up in my ever-expanding list. It’s an embarrassment of riches, really.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Guzmn/570745539 Daniel Guzmán

    Alcest is amazing, any project involving Neige is interesting.
    Anorexia Nervosa are also worth checking out, and good call on Yrkoon they are amazing.