There are albums you play and there are albums you experience. Rituel: Initiation is an album that begs you to find a dimly lit room, light a solitary candle and close your eyes for its 52-minute journey. This impressive debut album from Switzerland-based De l’Abîme Naît l’Aube arrives in a puff of incense smoke and existential intent, fully determined to envelope you within its ceremonial cloak. Across its five substantial tracks, the band merge post-metal heft and atmospheric black metal frost into a decidedly ritualistic experience.
The opener Une Pleine Absence stretches beyond the ten-minute mark as if daring your attention span to blink first and, to their credit, the tension is beautifully sculpted. Guitars rise and fall in great waves, drums pulse along like a persistent heartbeat, and the vast amount of layering is handled in such a way that it never becomes muddied. However, there are some moments where the listener may feel that a particular chord could have retired its services thirty seconds earlier without offending the gods of composition…
Credit needs to be paid to the vocal performances here, the variety on show is astounding. Harsh, rasped invocations collide with tribal throat singing, there are moments of extreme barked vocals and even some soaring, almost liturgical female vocals that feel genuinely transcendent. When it works, it’s mesmerising, the sort of sound that makes your spine straighten involuntarily. When it leans too heavily into repetition, however, the ritual risks drifting from transcendental to slightly indulgent. Not every chant needs to circle the altar quite so many times.
The centrepiece, Le Vertige d’une Descendance, encapsulates both the album’s strengths and its tendency for excess. It builds with patience, layering tribal rhythms and shimmering textures into an impending wall of atmosphere. The climax is monumental and fantastically immersive but the journey towards it does tend to linger for more time than necessary…devotion is an admirable quality, but true beauty is often found in restraint.
The production is impressively balanced: organic yet detailed, powerful without sacrificing clarity. Every strike, whisper and tremor feels intentional, and the band clearly care about cohesion. The guitar tones are balanced with such precision – whether it’s thick and warming or soaring above and coated in permafrost, every single note sounds incredible…and that’s without mentioning that crunchy, melancholic chord progression at the start of Un Sanctuaire de Cendres…one of many brilliant moments on this record!!
In short, this is an ambitious and often captivating debut that demands time, focus and perhaps a mild tolerance for grandiosity. But if you’re willing to meet it on its own ceremonial terms, you’ll find a record that is immersive, evocative, and (at its best) genuinely transcendent. Just don’t be surprised if you need a cup of tea and a lie-down afterwards.
Best paired with: a good pair of supportive shoes and a suspicious looking elixir gifted from a warlock.
Reviewed by Bryn.
De l’Abîme Naît l’Aube – Rituel: Initiation is out now on hypnotic dirge records.
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