(written by Islander)

The French extreme metal band Viande named their 2022 debut album L’abime dévore les âmes, which can roughly be translated as “The abyss devours souls”. It was a fitting title, because in listening to the music we imagined horrific terrors that await the extinction of life in endless chasms from which there is no escape — an abyss lying deep within the earth, opening its giant maw to swallow what now dwells in the sun, or a supernatural dimension to be revealed when hideous powers have decided the time is right, or a frigid void, or what lies within deranged human minds bent on mayhem and murder.

Now Viande are returning with a second album, again to be released by Transcending Obscurity Records (On July 31st). The name of this new one is Monument aux mort — literally a “monument to the dead,” but a phrase that also refers to war memorials established in towns throughout France to honor those killed in the World Wars and other lethal conflicts.

Like the first album, the new one triggers the imagination of listeners. Inevitably, it creates mental visions — daunting, dangerous, and viscerally haunting ones. As T.O. says, “When this carefully devised album ends, the feeling is akin to stumbling out of a horrific catacomb in an enhanced spiritual state, with the cries of a thousand dead souls still ringing in your head.”

As proof of this, we offer you the sounds of “Sacrifice ardent” (which refers to a sacrifice offered with utmost fire and fervor). Continue reading »