Discorde

Eris Somnium come from France, they consist of five members and they are together since 2008. Just some time ago (February 2015) they released their first full length album, which follows the until recently band’s only release, the self-title demo of 2009. So the new album is called Discorde and it contains six compositions of overall duration of thirty eight minutes. The album, with the cover and the overall artwork, gives the impression that here the listener will listen to a band which deals with space, its chaos and its darkness, by playing a chaotic, harsh and weird Black Metal with influences coming from bands as Darkspace.

That impression is true only concerning the lyrical part of the album, as indeed the band is describing the darkness, chaos and destruction of space into the four tracks written in French and the rest in English. Now musically, the band has nothing to do with the style of Black Metal that I mentioned above. The band presents a melodic, melancholic and quite dark Black Metal, with the characteristic tremolo riffs and the violent, full of rage and hatred outbursts. The influences come from the French scene mainly, without lacking of the references to the harsh Scandinavian Black Metal. The riffs are harsh, dark and into many parts chaotic, though the melody is what it is distinguished. The band is presenting a great variety concerning the ideas of the riffs for this album, but also their realization responds to the high level that the riffs demand. So the changes are done in a very smooth way, the images become very realistic and the atmosphere overwhelms the listener. Although that the duration of the tracks is long, every track is a short story, a short journey into the black space that despite its size it maintains the listener’ s interest to a high level.

So now regarding the instruments there is something that made me wander. I refer to the tone of the guitars. Although that the guitars are played with absolute accuracy, passion and feeling, their sound is quite weird. I could characterize them as out of tone or that they almost touch those boundaries. So that matter with the sound ruined my experience a lot of times and put me out of the album’s atmosphere. The bass is audible into every track and apart from that it fills the compositions very well, its lines are quite interesting. The drums do not do anything more than keeping the pace well and giving depth and stability to the compositions. They are played with accuracy and intensity but their role is secondary. The vocals are harsh, Black Metal vocals that although they are quite ordinary, they are quite expressive. The production is clean and dark offering a cold, black sound which fits to the compositions perfectly. The mixture is very balanced and all the instruments are in the right volume so as to maintain the solid character of the compositions. Finally the lyrics, as I mentioned above, they refer to the vast universe.

This album has some very good elements. It could be a very good release but the weird, maybe annoying tone of the guitars is reducing the value of the effort. However the band is proving that it can and it achieves to offer a very interesting album and with themes that you don’t see into Black Metal very often. I would suggest you to listen to the album and to get to know the band. However listen to it before you buy.