Fantome De Sang - Devouement [Altar Of Waste - 2013]From November 2013 Devouement was the 3rd release from Cory Stands Les Legions Noire influenced noise/ambient project. And this four track CDR focused in on a more defined & repetitive drum based sound- which takes the lo-fi blacked metal sound, and filters it into locked down & battering noise jams. In the past much of this projects sound has been extremely overloaded & blackly blurred- this created a dense & at times almost walled noise sound that hinted at lo-fi BM atmosphere. All but the fourth track here (which is a six minute drift in modified ambient guitar scaping), are focused in highly repetitive & battering drum tracks that are wrapped in thinner sheets of searing & modified guitar 'n' blacked noise matter. The tracks here run between six & thirty mintues a piece, and I’ll have to admit I was a little underwhelmed by them on the first few plays through. They just seemed to be centered on the seared & repetitive drum tracks, with the noise elements really remaining fairly set through-out. The whole thing just seem too simple & lacking compared with the dense yet detailed sound of the projects other albums. But over time I’ve come to enjoy the focused, endlessly bludgeoning & primal persistence of the album- sure I can’t say I find it as rewarding or replayble as the projects other work, but if I’m in the mood for a more blackly monotonous battering this works just fine. It’ll be interesting to see if Strand carries on with this sound in the future, mixers elements of into the projects original sound, or moves off somewhere quite different. So to sum up Devouement, if your expecting the blackly blurred & overloaded sound of releases like Maladif Lune or Dans La Nuit Vampirique you might (initially) be disappointed in this album, but if you enjoyed locked down & drum driven noise you may well get into this. Roger Batty
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