Style: screamo, chamber music (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Beethoven, La Dispute, In Fear and Faith, Astor Piazzolla
Country: France
Release date: 14 February 2025

Sometimes an album sinks its teeth into you and latches on in a completely unexpected way. At just thirteen minutes and three tracks, Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne sank its jaws into my flesh as unexpectedly as a sweet golden retriever randomly taking on the temperament of an XL bully. I loved, and still regularly spin, Vivre Encore from the French quartet, but French screamo—even with gorgeous chamber instrumentation—had to be a fluke. There is no way a band with French screamo vocals could triumph on back-to-back releases, right?

Triumph Lorem Ipsum have. That I’d love the chamber instrumentation is a given, so let’s tranquilize the massive pink elephant in the room before discussing the composition further: the vocals are screamo. In French. And I can’t get enough of them. Maxime Foulon absolutely nails the full capacity for emotion in the human voice with his performance—singing about the heartbreaks and successes of parenthood. Even without understanding the language, Foulon’s eviscerating screams, aggressive barks, and wailing cleans evoke raw emotion in a primal way. While his vocals on “Tes Yeux Clos” are still impressive, the performative highlights are found on the back half of the EP. On “Et le Mal,” Foulon follows the rhythmic elegance of the drumming while utilizing the most of his emo-y cleans; accordingly, he takes the melodic lead from one of the instruments for the only time on the album by toning his voice down from the acerbic harshes. Finale “Tes Jours sans Moi” uses his voice to match the instrumental buildup, starting with hushed spoken word and only growing in drama and bombast until he lets out an anguished scream.

The instrumentation is simply divine Baroque-inspired chamber music. In contrast with the harshness of the vocals, the piano, violins, piano, drums, and acoustic guitars are playful in intricate counterpoint, but their defining aspect is a singular intensity I’ve heard in pitifully few albums ever—all of which I consider among the best of all time. Like Ad Nauseam’s Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est or Astor Piazzolla’s Tango: Zero Hour, the instrumentation on Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne is at once extremely dense moment-to-moment but also in possession of an unstoppable sense of forward propulsion. The arpeggiated finger-picked guitar and pizzicato violin often herald the unrelenting momentum, and at other times the violin and piano’s fight for the main melody command the pace, starting within the first minute of “Tes Yeux Clos.” Lorem Ipsum also utilize changing tempos and dynamics to their advantage, as in the violent acoustic trem picking to start “Et le Mal,” the spiraling violin at the end of the same track, or the beginning section of “Tes Jours sans Moi” with its “Moonlight Sonata”-esque pace. 

As if Lorem Ipsum’s godly performances weren’t enough to solidify the EP as the release to beat this year, their songwriting is absurdly awesome, redolent of Ne Obliviscaris but in condensed form. For instance, “Tes Yeux Clos” begins alike “And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope” with its dynamic acoustics; soon after the first instrumental swell and scream, Alexander Foulon’s violin sweeps in with the melody, his style classical but raw like Tim Charles; and the final buildup of the song around 4:00 is simply sublime, leading into a crowd chant just like in “Libera.” Even the choice of chamber instrumentation equals to Ne Obliviscaris when they drop to just a string quartet in “Misericorde Pt. 1.” This is not to say Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne sounds like NeO, per se (or at all), but merely to compliment them that their songwriting has truly ascended the mortal plane into that of the gods. Spending a paragraph comparing Lorem Ipsum to a band with which they have almost nothing alike is a stretch, but I struggle to get across how profoundly my taste this record is—how godly the compositions are—without comparison.

Why oh why must the EP be only thirteen minutes long? I need more, and while I love Vivre Encore, it simply doesn’t show the same maturity Lorem Ipsum display here. At even a prim thirty minutes of this quality, I’d be tempted to slap a 10/10 on Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne, but as is, the EP is simply—and a tad frustratingly—not enough. Turning from so-beautiful-it-hurts to painfully raw in an instant, Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne has snared me, the release truly unique and Andy. Of course, Baroque screamo hasn’t really been done before Lorem Ipsum as far as I’m aware, but never have I fallen so in love with a short EP or heard traces of so many other albums I love in a package like this. Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne is at once transcendent of and blind to genre.

Recommended tracks: all three
You may also like: Ad Nauseam, Musk Ox, So Hideous
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: independent

Lorem Ipsum is:
Maxime Foulon • Piano / Vocals 

Arthur Deshaumes • Guitar 

Alexandre Foulon • Violin 

Bastien Gournay • Drums

The post Review: Lorem Ipsum – Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: atmospheric sludge metal, doom metal, metalcore, screamo (harsh vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: US-CA
Release date: 26 February, 2021

Over the course of the past few months I’ve been doing various discography runs. By doing at least an album a day I went through a ton of new artists. The most notable product of these adventures is that I got into post-metal, doing five of the major artists in The Ocean, Neurosis, Cult of Luna, Isis, and Intronaut. This album by Black Sheep Wall is the first time since then I’ve gone to review a post-metal album. Or at least, that’s what it said on our spreadsheet. Because unfortunately for me, post-metal this is not (being the closely related atmospheric sludge metal instead). And to make it even worse, it has very significant influences of two of my most Loathed genres in metalcore and screamo. Being stubborn as I am, I couldn’t just give it to someone else, because I strongly felt like I just had to finish the task I had set out to do.

What drew me to this album was the humongous, thicc sludge riffs, great production value, and amazing looking album art. And indeed those elements are all done really well. The album sounds exactly how you want an album in this genre to sound. This riffs sound massive, the bass tone is thicc, the vocals are front-and-center without overtaking the instruments, and the drums have a dry punch that compliments the rest really well. It’s balanced very well, both in terms of mixing and mastering. It’s loud when it needs to be, but also spacious and soft when it needs to be so you don’t get ear fatigue.

What did give me ear fatigue though were the vocals, but that’s more personal taste. I absolutely can’t fault Brandon for his vocal performance. He brings that typical metalcore angry sound into his harshes, and he’s very convincing at it. It’s a very powerful, animated performance that’s far from one-note. I imagine he gets great strength from the lyrics, which he told were very personal to Invisible Oranges in an interview. The lyrics tackle a number of things. As I understand it, they tackle the perils of growing up in too much comfort and how it makes you weak, likening it to a relation where only lust counts, but at the same time critiquing society for how much financially worse the current generation has it compared to previous ones (“Your savings are our debt and we fucking hate you”). It’s a great deal of hatred, both at himself and at the world. They’re written in a very direct and confronting style, making it both personal to the author and very relatable to the listener. They did a great job with them in my opinion.

I found the songwriting largely strong here, but there are some caveats. The band is at their best during the active, riff-heavy parts. The riffs are so heavy it feels like an elephant stepped on you. They use various riff patterns to keep it dynamic, and the drums follow suit during these parts with a good amount of fills and rhythms. The third song “Concrete God” is a prime example of this and easily a highlight on the album. Where it tends to fall flat though is during the more atmospheric bits. It reminds me a lot of early Intronaut tonally during the more quiet parts, but they fail to sufficiently progress the atmosphere, making it sound really lethargic. Whereas a band like Cult of Luna constantly builds up the intensity with increasingly intricate fills and atmosphere, Black Sheep Wall lacks good melodic progression and the drumming remains in the same place too much.

The lack of lead play in general I found to be problematic on this album. Not that this is a genre known for flashy guitar solos, but nearly every cathartic part seemed to stem from a breakdown. This album would have greatly benefitted from some more expressive melodic atmosphere. In the opener “Human Shaped Hole” I was teased with weedly weedly leads that, though admittedly I’m not a fan of personally, would have greatly helped in giving the album more variety. By the time the second song “New Measures of Failure” concludes its 13 minute runtime, I’ve nearly forgotten about them entirely. The song in general is exemplary for both everything this album does right and everything it does wrong, starting with a great riffing assault, but eventually devolves into endless boring atmosphere. As the song reaches its climax and they shout “I hope you hate me \\ I hope you always hate me” I think to myself “well, I sure do now.” Not even the trumpet cameo on “Ren” can save the atmosphere in that regard.

I don’t think Songs for the Enamel Queen is an unsalvageable record. Despite the flaws I mentioned and its relatively lengthy 59-minute runtime, the album is surprisingly listenable and for the most part captivating enough to offset boredom (though some atmospheric parts can be a real slog). At its peak this is some very good sludge metal, and I suspect that those who don’t have the innate metalcore dislike that I have will get a lot more mileage out of this album. I wholeheartedly recommend this album for anyone who likes their metal heavy and groovy, because it delivers those aspects in spades.

Recommended tracks: Concrete God, Prayer Sheet for Wound and Nail
Recommended for fans of: Gojira, Cult of Luna, (early) The Ocean, (early) Intronaut, riffs as heavy as an elephant stepping on you
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Twitter | Metal-Archives page

Label: Silent Pendulum Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Black Sheep Wall is:
– Brandon Gillichbauer (vocals)
– Scott Turner (guitars)
– Andrew Hulle (guitars)
– Juan Hernandez Cruz (bass)
– Jackson Thompson (drums)

The post Review: Black Sheep Wall – Songs for the Enamel Queen appeared first on The Progressive Subway.