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FORTERESSE Metal Noir Quebecois (Sepulchral Productions) cd 11.98
Another blast of Metal Noir Quebecois from the great white North. And we're talking Canada of course, Quebec to be exact (duh). From the same label that brought us the depressive doom laden melancholia of Sombres Forets, and is run by the guys in Canadian black metal legends Frozen Shadows. In case you hadn't figured out Metal Noir Quebecois, that's Quebecois black metal! And this is some seriously grim and blasting nineties style frosty blackness for sure, the guitars are thick and massive, a dense black buzz, the drums are blasting, the riffs are killer, while other guitars wail and swoop beneath the main riffs, creating a tangled backdrop of haunting melodies and epic grandeur for the swirling relentless buzzing blackness above.
Supposedly, with Metal Noir Quebecois, Forteresse are celebrating the folkloric music and culture of the French part of North America, which is most noticeable (actually maybe ONLY noticeable) in the intros to some of the tracks, old scratchy recordings of traditional fiddle music (hence the old photo of a man cradling his fiddle on the cover), lots of crackle and hiss, the fiddle sawing out a sort of jig, or jaunty little folk tune, before being obliterated by the black wall of buzzing sound, very jarring, very bizarre, but somehow it works. And the metal itself, even without the strangely out of place fiddle intros, is some of the most glorious blasting buzz we've heard in ages. Definitely one of our new favorite black metal discs...

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