Neige Et Noirceur

L'Abime Des Jours, Lecume Des Nuits

Hypnotic Dirge Records 2010

This is a 2-disk rerelease of Neige Et Noirceur's 2007 demo originally on Dungeons Deep Records.  And Hypnotic Dirge has done a great service to the underground by repressing this.  This demo profoundly illustrates Neige Et Noirceur's penchant for meshing cold ambience and even colder black metal into a nebula of icy darkness.  The title track is a 25-minute, methodically shifting journey through different movements of ambience and black metal, including a the shimmering dance of fairy keys, gurgling monstrosities residing in the fog and a tempestuous fever of black metal might, like an avalanche of icicles.  The raw black metal riffs buried beneath deep guttural vocals and desolate synth evokes a feeling of naturalistic and obscure magic.  Frolicking wolves baying in the night announces the arrival of Loin Des Hommes, Pret Des Betes.  Atmospheric keys paint astral swaths through the music before being overtaken by dungeon sounds.  From this silence arises an ever increasing drone of windy white noise.  Souffle is a indistinct march of piano which then fades into the chilling female voice and angelic keyboard of Decor Astral Sans Lune.  The track quickly devolves into raw black metal ferocity, possessed of an anger rarely felt within underground circles.  L'evell Dans Le Mort is not nearly as memorable because the midtempo riffs and simplistic keys don't excite as much as the rest of the album's material.  The album is rounded out by Orlok, another cosmic textured ambient track combined with venomous black metal.  The initial and final stages are a bit like a more structured Neptune Towers with wind and subterranean noises. Sandwiched between them is rapid black metal layered with dense noise.  As always, Neige Et Noirceur elegantly dances between raw black metal and haunting ambience.  This demo highlights the maturity that was displayed on their debut album, Crepescule Hivernal...