Cénotaphe - Monte Verità (2020)^{Release ID: 17182}

Well I'm finally caught up on new mainstream releases and finally have some time to relax and listen to some of the best that metal supposedly has to offer. I mean it's not like I have anywhere to go at the moment! The first album I listened to was a debut record from French black metal band, Cénotaphe, and I found this album to be pretty bland and poorly mixed.

For one, there were plenty of moments throughout this record where the guitar, bass and drums are lost and out of sync with one another. My guess is that it makes for a more raw experience, but to me it just sounds wrong and that Brume wasn't listening to his own parts while recording the rest. As for the vocals, I am not much of a fan. These screeches are more like howls and the singer seems unable to hold his breath. There are a couple of clean moments on the record, but they are typically sung as a plainchant and it doesn't sound very interesting or unique.

The songwriting is pretty lackluster as well. There are ideas here and sometimes they are exemplified, but too often these ideas are only used as an introduction before transforming into pretty standard black metal riffage. These contrasting ideas never feel like they are molded properly and just give me the impression that most of these songs were half finished, so they decided to add a completely new one to increase the track lengths.

This album feels much longer than the forty-six minutes that it is allotted. Even the good ideas that are here don't really stand out among the best in black metal so far this year. It feels very pedestrian and might intrigue you if you enjoy the traditional black metal sound, but not for me.