SORDID: Thus ends the day

Like a Darkthrone who does as he pleases these days, and doesn't care about “what will people say?” » by continuing to explore more and more their own heavy, speed, and doom metal roots from the 1970s/1980s, even if it means sounding progressive at times and less and less black metal, the French of Sordide also do nothing but 'at their heads, totally independent and wild since their debut on the Normandy scene in 2013. Influenced by the cult Norwegian group, mainly by their period 2006-2010 (including the punk album black'n roll F.O.A.D .), they deliver their fifth fireship to us So the Day Ends. This succeeds the White Ideas published in June 2021 while the covid-19 pandemic still prevented artists from performing live. And after seeing them live in November of that same year 2021, we were now impatient to see what musical direction they were going to follow, now accompanied by the terrible drummer Nemri (Iffernet, Mälemort, ex-Asphodèle, ex-Monarch), and their new bassist Ian (Am I Not, Vain Valkyries). As on White Ideasno preliminaries here. After an introductory feedback, the sonic assault is wildly launched with the single “Des feu plus forts” on an up-tempo rhythm, and an almost hypnotic dissonant riff. The screams of Nehluj and the new slugger Nemri (there are two of them singing, a bit like Darkthrone again but no clear voice here) tear the atmosphere of urgency and violence.

The second piece, relatively long with its 8'42 on the clock, also starts off with a bang, and the break arriving at the fifth minute is appreciable. Very dark and incisive, with its galloping rhythm, it almost recalls the abrasive, heavy, punk rock of The Melvins mixed with Norwegian black metal a la old Darkthrone or Gorgoroth when they were still threatening in the 90s. Let's remember Incidentally, the members of Sordide have given several shows here and there in recent years with a Nirvana cover project of which Kurt Cobain was a fervent admirer of the Melvins. We therefore find this raw and immediate side, with a sound almost like Jack Endino (Mudhoney, Soundgarden at the beginning, Nirvana at the beginning, etc.), between energetic punk rock'n roll and vicious black metal. The bass of their new recruit Ian is particularly heard, as on their previous misdeeds, and we find this same groove previously provided by Benjamin Rouchaville, alias “Lord Telümehtår” (now in Mòr, among others). And on a slower and more sinuous song, it even becomes hypnotic (“Le cambouis et le carmine”). Sordide likes to cover his tracks, to be dangerous, then to light the fire, as on the stifling “Sous vivre” followed by the terrible and groovy “Banlieues rouge”, perhaps in a nod to our French suburbs which were set ablaze at the beginning of summer 2023… There are many political-social metaphors behind the words of these furious Normans, and especially on So the Day Ends.

But there can also be a kind of poetry in Sordide even if the whole thing can seem dirty in this abrasive and oppressive sound with a sticky atmosphere like soot (“The Poetry of the Grower”). A violent and tortured poetry… In this, they are in a certain way closer to their label mates, Miasmes. The end of the album turns out to be rather speedy and chaotic (“The Beauty of Disaster”), and perhaps some listeners will have given up before the end of hostilities given the length of the pieces (more than eight minutes! ). However, there are good, saving breaks and always well-crafted riffs leading to more relaxed but still dark passages, while the screams tend to let the compositions breathe (the break and long bridge on “La Beauté du Désatre”, the slow “and doomy “Everything is to death”). So the Day Ends is therefore not at all the kind of record that is both dark and mainstream to offer to fans of the latest Tribulation or Swallow The Sun also released this fall because they would lose their bearings, suffocated by these thick smoke, because it is well known , there is no smoke without fire. And on this fifth misdeed of Sordide, it is indeed the fire in all its splendor and its consequences (death) which are at the center of their music. [Seigneur Fred]