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! ! ! ! !
Artist......: Morte France
Album.......: Souveraineté radiale
Year........: 2023
Genre.......: Black Metal
Type........: Album
Label.......: Antiq Records
Language....: FR
Source......: WEB/FLAC (16bit)
Quality.....: 974kbps / 44.1 kHz / Stereo
Tracks......: 7 tracks
Playtime....: 00:39:07
Size........: 272.5 MiB
R.Date......: 2026-06-15
S.Date......: 2023-02-23
Url.........: https://www.deezer.com/album/405082917
01. Souveraineté radiale 5:48
02. L'âge du loup 6:40
03. Sainte géhenne 5:20
04. Chevaucher le tigre 2:12
05. Debout au milieu des ruines 7:58
06. Virtus deificans 7:38
07. Meurs et deviens 3:30
Listening to this first studio album from MORTE FRANCE,
after the promising E.P. of 2022, it shocks, it
disorients and it shakes up ideas. After the first ten
centimeters, we are ready to fight. FIGHT!!! Fight, yes,
but with whom? The snakes of modernity and all their
vain, superficial temptations and their values diluted
until none can be distinguished.
With its antique appearance, in truth, the cover signed
Immvables says a lot about the meaning of this record
and its content. Its mythological hero seems to seize a
contemporary artifact and fights fire with fire. Even
more than on "Sola Fide", whose title referred to the
faith of the main songwriter of MORTE FRANCE, Kval, the
music and texts of "Souveraineté Radiale", by surfing on
eminently contemporary instruments, spit out all this
hatred of contemporary modernity. Not that of the
Enlightenment era but the more recent one, resulting
from the misguided liberalism of the last century, which
ended up instilling the idea that everything and
especially anything is worth it. And that any
particularism needs to be defended to the point of
dissolving the essential common bond. A modernity which
would require to be fought or/then overcome in order to
be surpassed and reach a new cycle more faithful to
traditional values, in the path of heroes - in the
ancient sense of the term - who would have remained
faithful to them.
Whether or not we share Kval's point of view, anchored
in the metaphysics of René Guénon and that of Julius
Evola (minus the vacillating political discourse), it is
clear that this vision of things is embodied wonderfully
in this very direct and above all very "rigid" Black
Metal, the guitar being the real driver of MORTE
FRANCE's music. In this, this first album does not
betray the promises of the E.P. who preceded him. Kval
KNOWS how to riff and he doesn't hold back, each song
containing its share of well-felt hooks. Barely have the
initial clean chords of the title track faded away when
Kval's frenetic tremolo picking grabs us by the throat
and never lets go. Because it is pernicious, the riff of
"Souveraineté Radiale". Under its fairly classic Black
Metal tunes, it settles into the stomach and instills
itself into the mind to devour it from the inside.
This first long-term, which doesn't look like much at
first glance, is in reality a succession of earworms, as
the Anglo-Saxons say. His compositions find a
comfortable place in your head and you don't need to
listen to them a thousand times for that. A real
strength which makes it possible to overcome the
relative lack of thickness of the production and the
somewhat tenuous guitar sound when the guitar is not
doubled. If Ghmur's drums are highlighted, the sound
spectrum lacks the weight and muscle of Taur's bass, too
muted, to support the edge of the guitars. Which would
give Kval's texts even more impact. But that doesn't
take away from the catchiness of the songs. Because the
guy knows how to bring the sound dimension that his
writings require as soon as he puts his voice on it.
Disconcerting at first glance, due to its more shouted
(even shouted) and articulate side than a Black™ voice,
intelligibility of the texts obliges, it is no less
capable of a beautiful diversity, pouring here into the
guttural register and there, into the torn howl.
Thus Kval makes his vocal versatility one of the three
major weapons of MORTE FRANCE with his words in French
and his riffs. Weapons which, combined, reveal an
authentic capacity to haunt the listener's entire being.
The final two minutes of "L'Âge Du Loup" and the guitar
lines that characterize them are one of the highlights
of the album, full of emotions, including nostalgia,
compassion and anger, of course. And what about the
fiery "Sainte Géhenna"? Extremely direct in that it does
not develop any real sub-section or any downtime, it
shows to what extent the group knows how to be brutal,
as the title of the piece demands. But the best is not
there and must wait for "Debout Au-Dessus Des Ruines"
which proves that MORTE FRANCE already has a lot of
greats.
A little miracle of composition that has everything
going for it, this title presents a number of riffs and
distinct parts that come together wonderfully, whatever
the tempo adopted. The chorus, performed with impressive
conviction by Kval, exalts all the desire for power and
triumph that lies dormant in each of us. And the sound
archive which precedes the final assault does not
detract from its force, on the contrary, acting as a
welcome breather after such a peak of intensity.
Honestly, since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic
and its procession of confinements during which this
first opus of MORTE FRANCE germinated, very few pieces
of French or Francophone Black Metal have proven to be
as powerfully unifying and, yes, exhilarating as "Debout
Au Milieu Des Ruines". Apart from GRIFFON's sublime
"L'Ost Capétien", none come to mind.
So much so that it is difficult to move on after him and
it is an arduous task to conclude the album, left to
"Virtus Deificans" - with the almost Medieval Black riff
on the chorus - and to "Meurs Et Deviens". Clever,
however, Kval and his acolytes were able to judiciously
construct and articulate the trackist, which allows a
real rise in intensity up to "Debout Au milieu Des
Ruines" and a final progression towards a calm
materialized by the words of Gérard de Nerval, the one
and only words of "Meurs Et Deviens". An ode to
posterity, these verses from the poem "La Gloire"
conclude the record elegantly and in a more romantic way
than any other text on the record does. The pivotal
moment being this sequence between the essential
"Debout..." and its direct predecessor "Chevaucher Le
Tigre", a very Indus/Noise instrumental where the noise
of modernity covers the chants of Buddhist monks until
making them inaudible for good.
Proudly standing in the face of adversity, MORTE FRANCE
has indeed confirmed, and largely, the promises of "Sola
Fide". Without making it too long or with too much pomp.
So, and if it continues like this, whatever the snakes
that hiss in front of its head, the group should not
soon stop claiming - with talent - its anti-modernity.