We’ve said it many times but, in the warm world of wine and extreme music, our brothers and sisters from just across the water seem to just be the best. Hailing from Montpellier, France, and creeping onto my radar for the very first time, come Verdun. On their third full length. ‘Abyssal Womb’, they bring a torrent of dissonant doom sludge – yet not without a healthy injection of post metal and a faint whiff of groove.
From the opening, almost post-hardcore, smashes of ‘Funeral of the Cosmic Knight’ and then the descent into a combo of Thou and Vallenfyre inspirations, I knew immediately this was a record for me. Add in the post progressions of ‘Silent Witness’; the hammering, bleak slowness of ‘La Lame et la Chair’; and the intrinsic blackened spine that sits through ‘The Man Behind The Eyes’; and I present a record I will listen to on repeat.
It’s during the crippling weight and density of closer ‘Les Noces du Néant’ that vocalist David Sadok really comes into his own as he moves away from the harsh vocals that have permeated most of the rest of the record, and adopts a harrowing and brain-burrowing clean taken straight from the Amenra voice storage unit.
This is the first record from Verdun in 7 years and, although new to me, I can tell that they are, potentially, just falling into their stride again. This is quite brilliant but, like the tanks of the local Languedoc-Roussillon wineries, there is plenty more even better stuff in there. I look forward to popping a cork on that in the future but, for now, I’ll definitely enjoy this sense-jangling little number a few more times.
Best Paired With: A Hailstorm, A Pile Of Skulls and An Ability To Swing All Your Limbs At The Same Time.
Reviewed by Jaff.
Verdun – Abyssal Womb Is Out Now On Transcending Obscurity Records.
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