(written by Islander)
The French black metal duo Iffernet released their self-titled debut album in 2019 and followed that with their second full-length Silences in 2022 and a split with Dolpo in 2024. Now they have completed work on a third album, Life at Heart, that’s set for release in different formats on March 20th by a quartet of labels — La Harelle, Vendetta, Breathe Plastic, and Fiadh.
The new album includes seven tracks, and what we have for you today is the premiere of a devastating song named “Triumph of Death“.
photo by Mederic Clatot
“Triumph of Death” arrives second on the album’s track list. It’s preceded by the opener, “With the Past”, and we should share a few thoughts about that one because of how it sets the stage for everything else, including the song we’re about to premiere.
That opening track fills its first moments with distant sounds of thunder and rain, and then it storms more intensely, setting nerves on edge with abrading tremolo’d riffing that seems to viciously seethe and dismally writhe while drums thunder and a shattering voice screams. Dissonant notes desperately ring, the vocals morph into agonized wails, and a trilling guitar also wails, but with no relent in the ferocity of the drumming or the boiling intensity of the riffing, until finally the drums set a steadier pace and the rapid guitar vibrations take on a more dismal cast – a different and more hopeless shade of darkness.
The tormented cries flare again, carrying their own haunting melody of pain, and the music expansively storms again too, with guitars slashing and flashing. The words speak of dead lands and unbearable burdens, of living with the past in a painful passing of days, of sinking in tears.
It’s a breathtakingly intense, and intensely soul-splintering, way to begin, but with an immediately following song named “Triumph of Death”, you won’t be expecting warmth or comfort. That song, which you’re about to hear for the first time, is propelled by big booming and bounding beats but it also immediately sears the senses with dense, caustic riffage, scorching snarls, and blood-letting shrieks.
Once again, the riffing (like the tortured vocals) seems to channel agony and despair, abandonment and bitterness, and does so on an increasingly traumatic scale. The hornet-swarm fretwork rises as well as convulses, building tension as well as distress. When the tension breaks as the drums slowly pound and momentously crash, the layered guitar vibrations and harried cries are still distraught – they seem seem to beg for relief, but the music itself shows no sign that any prayers will be answered. It is a fiery and exhilarating but still thoroughly desolate piece of music. However, the lyrics end with these lines:
Soaking up the sun
Against black suns
No bastard wind
No empty shore
Can drown the radiant hearts
Wanderers with hope
We’ll hold our thoughts until a later date about the album’s following five songs, how they move this journey forward from such a tremendously harrowing and haunting start, and whether those hints of hope bear fruit or become crushed.
IFFERNET is:
B. – guitar & vocals
N. – drums & vocals
Life at Heart is released in memory of Michèle and Momo. Instruments were recorded live at Chaudelande Studio in Cherbourg, France, by Emmanuel Laffeach. Vocals were recorded in Rouen. The album was mixed by Emmanuel Laffeach, and mastered by Marlon Wolterink/White Noise Studio. It includes field recordings by Eddie Ladoire, and is completed with logo and drawings by Patrice Réglat-Vizzavona.
It will be released on vinyl LP and CD by La Harelle (France) and Vendetta Records (Germany), on tape by Breathe Plastic (Netherlands), and on tape and CD by Fiadh Productions (U.S.). More info and order opportunities will become available at the locations linked below.
https://laharelle.com/
https://laharelle.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/laharelle
https://www.vendetta-records.com
https://vendetta-records.bandcamp.com/album/life-at-heart
https://www.facebook.com/vendettacult
https://breatheplastic.bandcamp.com
https://tapes.breathe-plastic.org
https://www.facebook.com/breatheplastic
https://fiadh.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/fiadhproductions