Smohalla – Résilience (2011)

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Every month we get a few bands claiming to play Avant-garde whatever-genre and usually end up sucking majestically. This month’s great surprise is France’s Smohalla, a band that plays pretty solid and standard Avant-garde Black Metal in the vein of Arcturus, Vulture Industries, etc, but focusing more on deranged atmospheres rather than crazy catchy sections. This two person outfit does a great job in delivering eight tracks (around 45 minutes of music) of pure atmospheric craziness.

Setting up the albums atmosphere with “Quasar”, the band gives a very similar vibe to Arcturus greatest opus “La Masquerade Infernale”. Immediately after, “As sol les toges vides” follows with some deranges vocals, psychotic atmospheric elements and trippy guitars. These songs are very well crafted and help Smohalla establish a truly excellent opening for this album. “Les repos du Lezard” and “Oracle rouge” continue with a Doom-ish edge and very interesting choir arrangements.

Until know the music is very atmospheric, but we kind of feel that the band is missing some powerful lead vocals to avoid being as repetitive and linear as they have been so far. The trippy atmospheric piece “Marche silencieuse” is excellent thanks to some Jazzy influences the song presents. Breaking into more aggressive territory, “L’homme et la brume” gives a faster pace with some seemly random guitar riffing and crazy drumming. There are a few vocal leads in this track, but they are drowned into the album’s mix.

Weaving back and forth between atmospheric passages and bursts of craziness, “Aux mille dieux” and “Nos sages divisent” deliver somewhat linear and predictable songs that kind of sound like everything we heard before. By closing the album this way, we feel that while Smohalla has great ideas, they are still lacking creativity and solid ideas to craft truly effective tracks. The instrumentation in this release is excellent, the drums, guitars and atmospheric elements are well executed, but the songwriting is lacking some originality.

If you are looking for a decent Avant-garde release get “Résilience”, this album features very haunting songs and a powerful atmosphere. The only drawback is that is missing some powerful lead vocals and that you get that déjà vu feeling very often. We feel that Smohalla will be making better releases in the future, so we will continue to keep track of this band in the future.

Band: Smohalla Album: Résilience
Label: Arx Productions

Release: October , 2011

Oficial Site myspace
Genre: Avant-garde Black Metal

Country: France

Rating: 83/100
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