Trou noir vortex

“Trou Noir Vortex” is the first full length album of Trou Noir, the three member band from Russia and France. So, after their quite good demo, “Echoes in Black Holes”, they come back after a year (2012) to release their first full length album that it contains seven compositions on of which is an instrumental track, with overall duration a little above of one hour. The band continues here too, to offer their harsh, “space” Black Metal, this time reminding more of Darkspace.

What the listener will notice firstly is the different approach of “space” by the band. Here there are few parts that will let the listener calm. The band, here, is offering images of a darker, wilder and more violent “space”. The riffs are cold and monotonous, mainly of medium and fast speed while the compositions don’t lack also the slow parts but this time are a few. Moreover, the presence of ambient elements is more intense. The listener will come across various good ideas and images. The negative element of this album, on one hand, is the long duration of the tracks and on the other hand the mediocre structure of the tracks. The duration of the tracks has been tripled regarding the demo so that a better structure or the differentiation of the style of the riffing is demanded. However, the riffs are based in monotony and in atmosphere, something that is their characteristic. So the band should have worked more on the structure of the tracks as now their length and the monotony of the riffs create a tedious combination.

Concerning the sound, the production is clean but more bass than the previous release and it puts out a massive and quite solid sound. The mixture is quite balanced, highlighting the guitars and the vocals. The guitar is the instrument that creates the images and the feelings and it is doing it quite well. It is played with passion but it has some problems of synchronization with the drums in some parts, something somewhat disappointing. The sound of the bass is quite loud and the listener can listen clearly to its lines, which fill flawlessly the sound and they give depth to the compositions. The drums have simple and somehow repetitive lines, they don’t do initiatives and they don’t have changes. They are played somewhat soullessly and that makes them quite tedious. The vocals are those harsh screams that we came across in the demo too, only that here their sound is louder. The vocals with their passion and their intensity make the compositions more interesting, they are quite expressive and they fit to the style of the music. The lyrics are not contained in the cd and they are written in French.

In “Trou Noir Vortex”, Trou Noir are showing some weaknesses that they had achieved to hide in their demo. However, here too, the listener will come across some good ideas, some images and in some parts he will be dragged into the music. Unfortunately, that does not apply to the entire album that its length and the mediocre structure tires the listener. Generally this is not a bad album, but something is missing, something that in the previous release existed. The band has shown that it can offer things to the listener and through its mistakes it will become better. I wait for their next release. Only for the fans of the genre.