Act VI of Ex Tenebris Lux, the festival of extreme and divergent cultures, is held in Montpellier from Sunday October 13 to Thursday November 14. With the heavy, the dark, the terrible: Chelsea Wolfe, Rotting Christ, Jozef Van Wissem, Dool, Morne, Ulcerate… Attention lovers of infernal delights!
“You who enter here, leave all hope.” Once (per year) is not customary, we will not follow the advice written on the gate of Hell to welcome the damned into the Divine comedy of Dante. Certainly, the Ex Tenebris Lux festival is in essence a kingdom of shadows, since it is dedicated to what it calls dark and divergent cultures, but it would be very wrong to cross the threshold with the meter at zero and despair at full tilt! Quite the contrary: as long as one has an open mind (the same goes for the ventricles and pinnae, it’s even better), it is a promise renewed every year of extreme delights!
This is spectacularly demonstrated by his Dark Halloween which on October 31, with the complicity of the Montpellier National Opera-Orchestra, packed the Opéra-Comédie in a joyful surge of artistic horrors. Moreover, the third edition of said hellish evening is already sold out! But rest assured (or shudder, you understand that in this case, it’s the same): the rest of the program for this 6th edition, extended from October 13 to November 14, is also… d ‘hell !
So, this Sunday, for the opening of the festival, the Rockstore is hosting a big black metal evening, a subgenre of heavy metal initially marked by its inclination for Satanism and its obsession with violence, sordidness and dead. Today, things are a little better, even if it remains brutal but frankly stunning in this case with the Greek group Rotting Christ at the head of the bill (also with their Norwegian counterparts Borknagar and French Seth).
Nosferatu in film concert
The following Sunday, October 20, you have to rush to the La Vista theater to attend an exceptional film concert: Jozef Van Wissem, avant-garde composer and Dutch baroque lutenist based in New York made famous by his score for the film Only lovers left alive by Jim Jarmusch, will play live on lute and 12-string guitar on the restored version of Nosferatuthe masterpiece of expressionist horror directed by Friedrich W. Murnau.
On Tuesday, October 22, the Victoire 2 room, in Saint-Jean-de-Védas, will house three shades of gray: the Dutch quintet Dool with dark and lyrical rock, the French quartet Hangman’s Chair with sludge (a slow, sepulchral metal) very impressive and finally the Swedish singer and guitarist Jonathan Hultén with a superb gothic folk style.
We continue in the same vein (cellar) at the Maison des choirs for three strong evenings. Thursday October 24 at the Maison des Choirs with three French groups related to sludge: Celeste (blackened sludge, Lyon), Blóð (doom sludge, Bordeaux) and Akzen Auzi (evil doom, Toulon). Friday October 25 with three other extreme groups: the big Ulcerate (death metal, Auckland, New Zealand) and the valiant Fange (sludge, Rennes) and Sordide (black metal, Rouen). Saturday October 26 with three groups that are comparatively easier to access: the big American piece Morne (post-doom sludge) and the solid French Maudits (instrumental post-metal) and Glabre (post-rock).
An obsidian diva
Let’s quickly move on to Dark Halloween on October 31 at the Opéra-Comédie, as already said sold out, to go until Wednesday November 6 and to the Antirouille for a double dose of stoner, a subgenre of hard rock with heavy, hypnotic grooves, and acid, psychedelic guitars: the Poles nuanced with doom, Dopelord, and the French with a more punk spirit, Red Sun Atacama. Still at Antirouille, Thursday, November 7, marks the return to black metal territory with what that implies of guttural and cavernous singing (the famous grunt or death growl) with the local group Eternal Hunt and the enormous American reference Inter Arma (which adds death and post-metal to its boiling cauldron).
The following meeting, on Tuesday November 12, seems to us, with the aforementioned film concert, to be the widest gateway to these dark worlds. Fantastic Californian singer and guitarist with a background in drone metal, doom, experimental electronics and post-folk, Chelsea Wolfe has undergone a new transformation on her sumptuous 7th album, She reaches out to she reaches out to she: she now shines like an obsidian diva set in a metallic music jewel with trip-hop reflections, like “Portishead meets Nine Inch Nails”.
Of course, it’s not very happy (let’s just say that Mylène Farmer looks like Chantal Goya, see?) but what sublime music! The poster will be completed by Mary Jane Dunphe, an American poet and musician who is also worth a visit.
Finally, the last meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 14 at Victoire 2 in the spirit of “Would you like to have a last glass of spotted hemlock?” with industrial metal, mixed with electro punk, from Shaârghot, the post-punk of Kill The Thrill and the industrial electro of Machinalist Tarantulae. Thus, at the end of this act VI of Ex Tenebris Lux, there will no longer be a shadow of doubt that hell is also paved with beautiful inventions. “You who enter here…”well, have fun!
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