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Peste Noire > Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor > Reviews
Peste Noire - Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor

Peste Noire in one of their best moments. - 90%

DSOfan97, November 4th, 2015

The French black metal scene is by far my favorite. Many countries in the world can boast for displaying a long catalogue of quality black metal acts, but such versatility, talent, finesse and willingness for experimentation can only be found in France. Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord, Mutilaation are few of these bands. Peste Noire entered the scene with a bang in 2006 with their debut "La Sanie des Siecles" and one year later they released "Folkfuck Folie" which was fairly different and more depressive. However their most mind-boggling album up to date is this; 2009's "Ballade Cuntre Lo Anemi Francor". It isn't mind-boggling because of any unusual structures or avant-garde style, because these things are not present here. What is present here is a raw (in a good way), passionate and thrilling black metal performance.

The music in "Ballade..." is nothing like any band has ever done before (or even after I might say). The guitars create beautiful melodies, that will certainly touch you, the songs aren't just comprised of one or two riffs, they change constantly and the solos (yes there are solos) are frantic, even absurd. The whammy bar is used a lot, so the album sounds like a very old glitching tape recording, and that is amazing. In this way the album sounds even more vintage, just as it should. The whole retrospective feeling is fortified by the injection of brief interludes between the tracks, where pianos, accordions and Audrey's vocals create marvelous melodies. The drums quite often have a tribal feeling to them, like war drums that summon every instrument to take part in the battle. The bass accompanies the guitars and doesn't take the lead at any point.

The production is not as good as it should be unfortunately. It is fuzzy but not always heavy and of course there is that 'old-recording' effect that makes it sound vintage, but I would like to hear a more solid rhythm section in terms of production. The sampled natural sounds (birds, frogs and such animals), however, create a great atmosphere, thus the album's production is easily forgivable and not something that will hold you back from enjoying it.

The only point that I'm not quite fond of, are the lyrical themes. Peste Noire have dealt with national-socialist themes in the past (they had a song called "Aryan Supremacy", for example) and they also deal with them here. They show their love for their nation (and I'm totally okay with that) but they do not stay there. And that is kind of a problem for me. Not that I do not like the album, I love it. And I love how the vocals are delivered, how Famine screams or just sings folk songs about the greatness of France. And Sainte-Audrey's performance on the female vocals is an ear candy as well. It's just some of the lyrics that I dislike.

This album is a triumph for Peste Noire. Their unique, distinctive sound is here, yet it doesn't stand alone. New ideas are brought forth and they are executed in a marvelous manner. From the bellicose beginning of "Neire Peste" to the slow closing of "Soleil Couchants" Peste Noire offer nothing less than a masterfully crafted album that everyone has to listen to. There are many moments that blow my mind such as the outro of "Ballade Cuntre Les Anemis de la France" or the intro of "A La Mortaille!" but there's hardly one that disappoints me. And if the insurgents of the French revolution could pick a soundtrack for their struggle, this would be it.

Favorite tracks: "La Mesniee Mordissoire", "Ballade Cuntre Les Anemis de la France", "A La Mortaille!", "Soleil Couchants" and all the filler tracks (except for "Neire Peste")

90/100.

Surprisingly catchy and pop-friendly folk BM - 70%

NausikaDalazBlindaz, February 24th, 2015

This album's name translates from Old(?) French into English as "Ballad against the enemies of France" and the lyrics of the songs, some of which are drawn from various sources, are rallying cries to Peste Noire man Famine's nationalist vision of France. This vision includes PN's disdain for contemporary France as he sees it: culturally degenerate, riddled with imported ideas and ideologies that espouse multiculturalism, post-modernism, identity politics and welfare-state socialism that attracts undesirable immigrants whose customs weaken native French culture.

Spewing disgust, contempt and maybe no little self-loathing in turns, the recording lurches about with glee but the deliberate punk insolence is a thin veneer for some excellent musicianship, beautifully fluid guitar melodies and a tight production. The sound is very clear and sharp and in most songs all the music, especially the soloing lead guitar, is very clear. The bulk of the recording is straightforward melodic black metal with a clean if bombastic edge but as can be expected Famine tosses out unexpected folk-influenced pieces like the very short a cappella male / female duet "La France Bouge - Par K.P.N. (Chant de l'Action française)" which starts out fairly innocently but quickly converts into a shocking and sinister track as the lyrics quickly turn from a rally to arms into betrayal and subservience, and "Rance Black Metal de France" with its early male chorus, a (deliberately) badly played harmonica and bouncy rhythms.

The standard of musicianship is high with a strong emphasis on lead guitar melody and there's an equally strong accent on rock-out rhythms, crisp percussion and very catchy pop-friendly tunes and riffing. Oddly Peste Noire don't go in for anthemic songs, given its general nationalist orientation and lyrical subject matter which ranges from historical themes to appeals to French national pride; instead Famine plies the hidden niches of musical culture and finds odd and eccentric but very French ditties like the decaying-piano instrumental passages in "Concerto Pour Cloportes" and "Requiem pour Nioka (Á un Berger-Allemand)". It's these unexpected detours that lift the album from an otherwise hard-edged and aggressive pose not that different from the stance of other BM bands into another realm where the band reveals a surprising vulnerable tenderness.

For all the quirkiness, the folky elements and punky insolence that drives Famine to "rubbish" his work (while polishing it at the same time) into something so bad it actually turns out good, this album comes out sounding surprisingly commercial, as much melodic hard rock with a punk edge as it is black metal. Had it been released not as a black metal album but in indie-music / alternative mainstream genre charts with moderated lyrics, "Ballade ..." might have done very well.

Madly heroic - 95%

Rasc, June 9th, 2014
Written based on this version: 2009, CD, De Profundis Éditions (Digipak)

Going through the previous releases by Peste Noire, one would expect something dirtier than that album, maybe the raw and punkish black metal from La Sanie des Siècles, or the sickly fest in Folkfuck Folie, but here there was a fortunate yet large change, where the good and old inclination to ugliness and madness Peste Noire has always presented to us contrasts with cleaner traditional melodies, in a perfect transition between the previous and the following albums.

Listening to this album as whole, from the Church Slavonic chanting to the decrepit recitation of Paul Verlaine's poetry, means tripping through feelings of grandeur among mental decadence and the old wine of the dirties taberns of France. Each interlude is a different feeling of either melancholy or rage, with heavy black metal parts raising the spirit. Listening to this album in the right conditions would definitely transport one to a completely different reality. The quasi-title-song gets us to blood feuds of the Middle Ages, while La France bouge, an apology to the early far-right movement that composed it, symbolises the decadence of the XIX century in opposition to the age of extremes to come.

Musical structures in this album are characterised by, as antithetic as this may seem, a harmonious lack of linearity. Interesting to see how easily pizzicato acoustic guitars break into the punk-ish riffs we have heard from KPN in previous albums. There is almost as much interluding than metal here, which may make the songs sound a bit out of sense by themselves sometimes, but creates a good piece from cover to cover after all.

Valfunde's vocals may be as harsh as they have always been. However, the excellent mastering and production of this album makes them clearer then in their previous two, with his anthemic lyrics, screams and snores hitting the whole piece incredibly well. Audrey makes a great performance here, her vocals with the same sad sweetness we see in Amesoeurs, this time contrasting with all this accelerated music, as explored as never before. Instrumentation is great as well: dirty guitars (when they should be dirty, but classical when they should be classical) intense but discrete bass and varied percussion are all built around the atmosphere that surrounds each part of each song. Sometimes sad, sometimes irate. Instruments are able not only to mark military paces, but also to simulate nature. This part probably could not have gone any better.

I would recommend this album to any appreciator of black metal, elitist or basic, it is truly a hitter, not failing to transcend realms of experimentation in black metal. This is Ballade cuntre lo Anemi Francor, war anthems where beautiful meets horrible.

PN are the worst, most charming band ever - 83%

lord_ghengis, January 9th, 2014

Peste Noire were an awesome black metal band. They were a ridiculously fucking awesome black metal band. I couldn't do a particularly interesting review of Macabre Trancedence or La sanie des siècles, because they're just straight up, really enjoyable and genuine black metal albums full of raw emotion, harsh instrumentation, spiteful passion, and all that good stuff. Those are boring to talk about. You want genuinely great, artistically valid BM? Listen to early Peste Noire, 'nuff said, review done. Want to listen to perplexingly great BM created from a mangled and worthless mind? Listen to this.

I'm not sure what happened around 2007, but there must have been some kind of mass French brain haemorrhage because Famine's mind wound up fuuuuuucccccccckeed, and despite having obvious mental failings he managed to unite others from his nation in his woeful dream. Folkfuck Folie was a strange and awkward transition away from straight up brilliant black metal to the sort of weird black/punk/rock/folk/whatever that's on offer here, but it still had a few self respecting musicians involved to still make it feel like a semi-professional band was behind it. This here feels like Famine's solitary vision of being as horrid as humanly possible, and it's completely loveable for it. I hate to posit an argument based on artistic purpose beyond the product placed in front of you, but this whole album screams "I am trying to make the most horrible thing ever" and I love it despite of, hell, probably because of that obnoxious attitude. This album is a glorious banner flying for every atrocious musical idea ever conceived, and somehow uses them wonderfully. This is produced terribly, played abysmally, creatively retarded and insultingly stupid, and fuck it, it rules.

This album is clearly designed to sound as awful as possible. The guitar sound here is both scratchy to the point of being annoying, and distorted and relaxed enough to suck all rocking qualities out of the concept. The instrumentation is laughably bad and the songwriting is, if anything, more embarrassingly shameful. Oddly enough, this is what I find most endearing about it, it's horrid, lighthearted music, but it actually feels fun and lighthearted without being an all out joke, and most importantly I just find it utterly charming. As that would imply, the actual enjoyment for any given listen is purely determined by the listener's willingness to set aside the obnoxiousness and find joy in all its flaws and hateful personality, but anyone willing to ju-... God... just writing that made me feel like some kind of defensive fanboy refusing to admit his little pet band got sucky... I promise you, this has character and all that silly abstract stuff in quantities great enough to more than make up for its surface shortcomings, it's the only album in the world that does this for me.

This album is kinda like a hobbled and disfigured puppy with lots of aggression issues but no teeth to bite with, which also happens to be so dumb you need to actively stop it from jumping into open fires all the time. It has no authentic positive traits, it genuinely dislikes you personally and wishes you have a bad time, and stubbornly refuses to let you enjoy yourself by constant reminders of how terrible it is, but its abject shittiness is what makes it so endearing. Famine is a racist nutjob who wants to make bad music, but I can't help but want to give the little scamp a big scratch behind the ear.

The music on offer is highly rockish really, it's weird and roomy lo-fi punk-meets-surfer rock-ish stuff with unmusical and pissed off drunken black metal vocals and only a few metallic riffs. It's super thin and harsh sounding for sure, but the notes are quite loose and jangly, not dissimilar to some of the more psychedelic takes on BM, albeit with less focus and musical proficiency than would usually be expected of bands doing that sort of thing, so it doesn't quite fit as a real black metal sound. Interestingly enough, it is both a hard listen and completely passive. The tempos are uniformly tame, and the lack of any sort of low end definitely stops this from ever feeling like it has any real metal vigor to it. It's all quite relaxed riff-wise, never trying to be too extreme or too complex, just jangly open chords, vaguely melodic pluckings, and kinda-tremolos mixed with catchier hook based rock riffs; it's really quite pleasant to the ear given how sloppy the playing is and how shrill and tinny the guitars are. Really as far as genuine metal goes, "A La Mortaille!" and "Rance Black Metal De France" are the only songs that fit the description overall with enjoyable arpeggio riffs and little bursts of violence here and there, so the sheer abundance of weird blackened punk/folk/rock over anything else out there makes the album pretty interesting at the very least.

I guess the fact that it's not a cartoonishly bad basic concept at the core is what leaves me more susceptible to the charms on offer than I usually would be. It's different and engrossing due to its DIY no-fucks-given attitude, and many of the wandering and noodly riffs are downright catchy despite the crazily sloppy and half-assed aesthetic; really with some minor tweaks this could be genuinely good music. Even in its ugly form this doesn't sound too bad in of itself, and bands like Oranssi Pazuzu have shown that the idea can be downright good, but the production here kinda ruins any hopes for the listener getting any undiluted joy from the music. This is obviously very distorted and mangled, but still clearly defined between every single string hit, even on bigger power chords. They've really played up the echoing nature of the strings, so much so that every echoing twang stands out drastically from any that are played close to it, and then they've tried really hard to give the instrument the tone of flicking an empty Coke can despite all the lingering sustain. It's... ugly, and not in a good way. It doesn't add atmosphere or extremity like a good raw production should do, instead it merely makes the already quirky instrumentation sound downright goofy.

With that said you still end up with mostly quirky and intriguing basic sound, with some dopey production no doubt, but it's worthy of a passing interest and some form of enjoyment in itself. The unique charm of it would likely run out before the forty minute run time completed, but luckily Famine went one step further and lost his fucking mind in a more complete fashion by being intensely, unforgivably shitty in bursts of pure glorious failure. The numerous solos here are out of tune, punkish and noisy, and they're just perfect don't-give-a-fuck messy solos. They're not phrased carefully, they're not technically complex and they're not melodically intelligent, they're just bursts of hectic, sloppy energy or meandering, demented strangeness and they're all addictive as hell.

But it's the noises that come out of Famine's mouth which really illicit the biggest disgust/joy smiles in me. He overdoes his performance in the most marvelously stupid ways possible and it always makes me happy; he's just so committed to them. Obviously his primary delivery approach is his usually harsh and ugly wet snarl, with a few massively powerful roars to kick you back into your seat; nothing as full on as say, "Spleen" off the first demo, but certainly microphone breaking enough to do the job. However, he's also added in some much sillier things, from folkish chants delivered with the full gremlin snarl, to utterly incompetent clean singing attempts which are often harmonised with equally poor female ones, to the utterly hilarious yet infectious "La la la" hook on "La Mesniee Mordrissoire", to the horrendous but unforgettable harmonica solo on "Rance Black Metal De France". Almost all of these more out there touches are objectively terrible, but they always put a ridiculously huge grin on my face and add in a lot of life and vigor to the pretty laid back riffing. It's these sudden bursts of awfulness that really kick the album into being something memorable and endearing instead of just something quirky.

Despite being amazingly bad/good as it is, Famine seemed to feel Peste Noire was still far too tasteful and made some line up changes. The less apparent but probably more damning was dropping his previously competent drummer in favor of Andy Julia. Despite years of experience in many bands, he puts in a performance mostly fitting of a 13 year old in his first year playing. He plods drab rock beats awkwardly and sloppily, throws in pathetic three note fills with no payoff, and never, ever raises the intensity beyond "I am struggling to keep up with this 150bpm song". He constantly aims to play the most simplistic and dumbed down performance humanly possible, yet still fucks it up half the time. Honestly, his performance is the real big blight on the album, with his bad performance basically just being bad-bad, not good-bad. Sloppy, boring drums are not charming enough to make up for the fact that they're sloppy and boring; the poor quality of the drums doesn't add to zaniness of the album, it takes away from it.

Joining Julia is Audrey Sylvain of Amesoeurs fame. While she has elsewhere proven to be an outright talented musician in other realms, she definitely seems to be on the same page as Famine when it comes to trying to be as awful as possible here. She is a true anti-triple threat; can't sing, can't play, can't write. I'd make some horribly tasteless and sexist statement about how she's only in the band for sexual purposes, but I get the feeling she's so committed to the album's vile concept that she refuses to be within two hundred feet of another band member without covering herself in a mixture of chicken grease and centipede shells to make sure she's suitably unappealing. Her voice is awfully pitchy, frequently off time, and the semi-operatic vocal lines she attempts have absolutely no place in music this quaint and dinky. Her keyboard writing is exceptionally simple and laughable, yet she still messes up with alarming frequency. I mostly find these short bursts of abject failure a nice enough foil to Famine's core shittiness, serving the same role of really hitting you with a Tyson punch of hilarious abhorrence between all the quirky stuff, but the band frequently dumps her little interludes right next to other interludes. Obviously this is another attempt to do more things which are universally considered bad musical ideas out of spite towards the listener, but it works a little too well and makes these parts a little grating at times.

Look, I know how flimsy this argument is. I hate this argument. I've sat in impotent rage as people praise other stupidly "different" and "creative" albums which sound horrible for how one of a kind they are and how they're "artistically bold" or some shit, but never actually pointing out that anything on the album is good, but yeah I'm doing that here. I know the "La La La" thing is terrible, but I can't stop humming/squawking it, I know the Famine can't play the instrument but I'd never air harmonica'd until I heard this. This isn't good simply due to the virtue to the fact it's weird, it's good because of a certain... I don't want to say authenticity, because this album is most definitely a great big mask and all for show, but it has a very honest and defined character to it.

This doesn't feel like a "joke" despite being deliberately bad and quite tongue in cheek, it feels like quite an honest attempt to scream "Fuck you, you thought Folkfuck was a shitty sounding album with dopey ideas, try this on for size!" at anyone that will listen. That sort of indignant and stand offish but goofy and silly attitude is ever present through the music and I can't help but find it really endearing. To put it this way, the album feels like a pure distillation of Famine's ridiculous public persona: dirty, hateful, filled with pure disdain towards his peers and fans, but awkwardly funny and charming nonetheless. If Ballade cuntre lo Anemi Francor was a human being, it'd be the sort of person you could gladly get drunk with in a seedy bar despite the fact that he would be open about disliking you right to your face. Between the spilled drinks, angry glares and frequent, extremely offensive outbursts at random patrons he didn't like the faces of, he'd tell you really crazy and interesting stories in really exuberant and fun ways, overflowing with so much animation and vigor it'd be worth the stabbing risk. The album is pretty much a racist, French Vinny Jones I guess.

It's not all outright bad to be perfectly honest. For all the time I've spent laughing at the slackness, the core sound of the album is actually pretty listenable; weird and delivered terribly, yes, but it's pretty alright. It's an album of badly delivered decent but endearing riffs, with tactical nuke blasts of pure shittiness to really press home a "it's so bad it's good" sort of mood, and for me it actually works somehow. Most deliberately bad stuff tends to be more so-bad-it's-funny and doesn't resonate with much depth, such as Crotchduster or Anal Cunt, but this is really the only album I can think of that's managed to actually pull off being so bad it comes right back around to being truly enjoyable. It's almost entirely done through the amount of charismatic personality Famine has been able to inject into this sound and it really feels like a one of a kind sort of experience for that reason, so here's hoping I'll never be so dumbfounded trying to comprehend my own enjoyment of an album in the future. It's bad for sure, but no one will ever be this good at being this bad again.

Unreal, and one of a kind - 95%

autothrall, November 25th, 2009

Peste Noire have always been a bizarre band (left and right of center), from their roots in nationalism through the more depressive black metal of Folkfuck Folie to...whatever the fuck this album is. And I say that with no disdain or disregard, because if you can tune yourself out to all expectations of genre, Ballade Cuntre lo Anemi Francor is one of the most interesting releases this year.

Imagine a band trying very hard to be bad but failing at every turn, each questionable exploration transforming into a new wonder that steps beyond the borders of feasability. A hybrid of progressive and folk rock, unpolished punk and black metal with female vocals, samples, and bloodcurdling snarls, Ballade Cuntre lo Anemi Francor does not fail to fascinate through its 40 minutes of existence. The vocals of Sainte Audrey wail over a sparse, broken percussion while Famine's old ladylike rasp inaugurates a flow of noisy, garbled melodic picking, "Neire Peste", which surrenders to the hypnotic, deceptively disjointed, rocking "La Mesniee Mordrissoire". The riff at the minute mark is truly one of the most beautiful and terrifying things I have ever heard. "Ballade Cuntre les Anemis de la France - De François Villon" is a depressing piece with some jangling folk guitars over subtle crashing percussion that conjure you into some alternate reality of France in the Dark Ages. "A la Mortaille!" is a solemn, grim, wandering work, and "Soleils Couchants - De Verlaine" is a mesmerizing wave of sadness executed through pretty bass lines and a spacious ambience created through its cavorting snarl/female vocals.

If this album has a weakness, it's that a few of the shorter, interlude pieces simply do not live up to the amazing, normal length tracks. They're not at all bad, just not interesting. But the meat of the album itself is stupendously excellent, exceeding any expectation I could ever have had for this band and throwing down the gauntlet for unique folk-inspired metal bands to come. Ballade Cuntre lo Anemi Francor is important, and it's unreal.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

My beautiful country doesn't need this, no thanks - 40%

Sean16, July 12th, 2009

He was a skinhead, then he no longer was, then he is again. Wait, he most probably isn’t. When Famine, Peste Noire’s main man, returns with an album full of ridicule nationalist lyrics he can hardly be taken seriously. Everything is just too grotesque here, and it’s obvious the guy doesn’t mean a tenth of what he’s writing – or recording. Peste Noire used to play black metal, you know. But frankly, when I first listened to this, it reminded me more of Marilyn Manson or CocoRosie than of metal, be it black or not. At least its title is a tad less dumb than Folkfuck Folie, the band’s previous output, but this is because it couldn’t have been worse.

The production isn’t bad – it’s scandalous. That some bands which could afford expensive equipment instead deliberately choose to record on cheap material to get a specific raw sound is fully understandable, especially in black metal. However, this isn’t what happened here. It indeed seems like Peste Noire used high quality material and, later, artificially distorted pretty much everything. Raw should mean, well, natural. Ballade... is the epitome of a fully ARTIFICIAL record. The sound jumps, the echo, the awkward effects, everything sounds computerized, and probably is. The guitars are amongst the most distorted I’ve ever heard, to the point it becomes totally unpleasant, especially with highest notes. However, the worst treatment has been kept for the voice. There’s hardly a moment Famine’s already sick vocals sound natural, totally lost as they are into a synthetic stream. Unbearable.

But this isn’t enough as, probably thinking having made the production a complete joke and having made no less than HALF of the tracks consist in interludes which are complete jokes as well wouldn’t be enough if the musicians weren’t, in turn, complete jokes by themselves. The presence of Audrey Sylvain on this album can only be justified by the fact she’s now Famine’s slut after having been Neige’s, as not only her talent is virtually non-existent, but (or, more likely, because of this) she’s almost exclusively appearing on the interludes, which as written above are inherently worthless: silly sound effects, a bunch of piano/organ melodies written while taking a shit (and as my Sri-Lankan friend used to say, all you’ll do on the throne is doomed to be shit), and as a crowning achievement a song from Action Française, a now gone extreme right-wing movement. Of course as a singer Miss Sylvain is pathetic, and as an organist she doesn’t prove anything either – in fact, Famine could have played her parts himself without any loss. Now as anyone equipped with a semblance of a brain will skip the interludes anyway, there’s no need to develop more. The drums are much more of a problem.

Indeed with Winterhalter Peste Noire had found a perfectly decent drummer (though he’d never displayed stunning technical skills either), and I don’t know the reasons behind his departure – I couldn’t care less anyway. Probably did the guy still want to play black metal, what a weirdo. And again, Famine obviously recruited the WORST drummer he could think of, the guy from Nuit Noire; Nuit Noire being one of those bands which would justify the human cleansing he now seems to be advertising so loud. I guess at this point he could have put either Audrey Sylvain, a lobotomized monkey or Luc Mertz Himself behind the kit, it couldn’t have possibly sounded worse. This isn’t black metal drumming, in fact this isn’t drumming to begin with, this is a guy hitting a drumkit, what’s totally different. It’s not even a question of technics, it’s most of time a question of keeping in pace with the rest of the band. That’s downright pitiful but, again, this is likely to have been done on purpose.

It becomes thus obvious having a closer look at the songwriting makes little sense. The songwriting becomes anecdotal - it was meant to be so. However, each of the five real songs still has its own specificities. The best track and, in fact, the only track of the whole release which should be taken seriously is the closing Soleils Couchants, probably because it sounds closer to the style Peste Noire would have been better sticking to: the melancholic, plaintive, decadent black metal of their first full-length. Of course it’s only after two minutes of hesitating chords and awkward effects (frogs? toads?) the song really starts, of course the sound is as obnoxious as on the rest of the album, still for once it seems Famine has put some effort into the writing and recording. Let’s guess Paul Verlaine, this immortal wretch of a poet, washed up, alcoholic, homosexual at a time it wasn’t particularly trendy, wouldn’t have minded having his text backed by such music. And at least, it suits Peste Noire better that those wannabe-nationalist themes.

Apart from that... La Mesniee Mordrissoire is a typical, though rare occurrence of a song so bad it becomes good again. There Famine is not only overtly taking the listener for a perfect moron from the first minute to the last, but seems proud of his own (feigned) stupidity – even if the rest was offering some semblance of talent, what of course isn’t the case, the ridiculous opening chant, the both drunken and senile delirium at 3:14 as well as the repeated Sieg Heil!, pinnacle of cheap shock-value-only retardation, would be enough to completely discredit both the song and the band. But you know, you just HAVE to listen to this, it’s UNIQUE. Thank the Gods for this, some might add – I won’t. A la Mortaille is the fastest track of the album, the most reminiscent of the punkish material of Folkfuck Folie, and also the track topped by the most distorted vocals – yes, here it means A LOT. Draw your own conclusions. Rance Black Metal de France sounds like a more black-metal oriented version of La Mesnie Mordrissoire and should be remembered for little more than the punctual apparition of a harmonica Famine obviously doesn’t know how to play. Amazing. Eventually Ballade Cuntre les Enemis de la France has the medieval vibe one could expect from music written to accompany a text from François Villon, the famous French wicked medieval poet, but as everywhere else the odious production just kills everything.

Don’t get me wrong, Famine is a very clever man. Paradoxically, this album proves it. He wrote the worst music he could ever think of on purpose, and wrapped it in the worst sound he could ever achieve on purpose. The talentless musicians, the dumb nationalist lyrics all serve the same purpose. Provocation. You know, I referred to the infamous Marilyn Manson on purpose as well. Guess what my purpose is.

Highlights: La Mesniee Mordrissoire, Soleils Couchants

I don't even know where to begin - 0%

InspectorGadget, April 20th, 2009

Having heard Folkfuck Folkie, the Lorraine Rehearsal, and La Sanie des Siecles..., I thought I knew what to expect from this album. Was I ever wrong.

This is black metal in the same way that margarine is butter - a vague and wholly unsatisfying approximation. I have a difficult time believing that the same band that wrote and performed "La Fin Del Secle" did this album.

I will avoid a song-by-song review to give you a short summary: Imagine half of Cradle of Filth move into C-squat with Raffi, a few female backing singers and Jean Marie Le Pen and play a bunch of traditional slng-along French nationalist songs in a sloppy crust-punk style. The guitar work on this album is boring and repetitive, versus some of the truly interesting stuff Famine has done in the past. There are no blast beats, no double bass, no vicious tom rolls to be found. Arpeggios - seemingly collected from a box set of 5 - abound endlessly. Famine's vocal range is noticeably reduced to a sort of hoarse howl, versus the roar-to-screech range he has exhibited on other albums.

Aside from the throw-away 2-minute filler tracks, the songs on this album go something like this:

Field recording of birds chirping -> Cymbals, hi-hats -> Guitar arpeggios -> Famine and half a dozen backing singers repeat the same line ten times -> Guitar arpeggios -> Lots of slack-tuned, slow drums to make the bridge sound important -> Slow guitar arpeggios -> Oh look we remembered power chords -> Noisy, slurred "solo" -> Female singer -> Tape hiss -> Fin.

Garbage.

More through less. - 94%

LordBelketraya, April 15th, 2009

Up until a few years back I felt Peste Noire was a band that deserved to release proper full lengths and get their sickness more widespread to the world. Then in 2006 they released which is possibly their best work in 'La Sanie Des Siècles...' and they were on their way.

While plenty of people disliked 'Folkfuck Folie' I actually liked it a lot. Maybe it wasn't on the same level as the prior release I still like it nonetheless. But the overall consensus was that of a slight disappointment. Then we get a longer wait period between albums and a massive lineup change. Peste Noire now is practically a Famine solo project with different people to help out "his" vision. While I don't really like this I can't argue with the quality made here on the new release 'Ballade Cuntre Lo Anemi Francor'.

There's 10 tracks and you could really say that five of them are "real" tracks since the other five all clock in under two minutes. But the quality of those short "interludes" or ambient tracks don't detract from the overall feel of the album as a whole. They are short pieces which include female chanting, pianos, cymbal crashes, etc. While I'm not into females in black metal, she does lend some sort of relief or respite from the craziness and fury of Famine's voice and disturbed mind. But she does get on my nerves on track 5 (La France Bouge) with her singing. It gets to a point where we get that she can sing, but take a breather woman. She does deserve a solo release though.

Throught all the screams, disturbing sounds and sickness that spews from Famine's mind and lungs there is an absolutely BRILLIANT and creative musical talent that we have here. He is one of the most unique and boundary pushing guitarists and songwriters in black metal history. Of that I have no doubt. He does something that I always considered impossible or improbable, that is to take guitar writing and playing to new levels without "selling out" or genre changing. He is so underrated in that regard. On the title track he starts out with an acoustic guitar, slightly distorted and then slowly goes into a full electric guitar and uses folkish elements in the song, actually he tends to do this in most of his work.

Peste Noire is a deeply proud band of their homeland France, proudly singing in French and praising their deep and rich history pre-WW II. Using songs from their past poets and making them ballads of pride and even hatred. I don't think any other band really follows a similar path as them. Their songs are profoundly melodic, distorted and full of raw intense hatred. You can almost call them a "Hooligan Black Metal" band. Actually one of their songs from 'La Sanie des siècles...' is called 'Retour De Flamme (Hooligan Black Metal)' So I guess I should call it "Sophisticated Hooligan Black Metal" to be more precise.

My only gripe would be that Famine bring back Indria, Winterhalter and company in order to remain a "band" once again. I also would have liked more "songs" and less ambient interludes which took up half of the tracklisting. And lastly, less of the female singer, while she is a nice addition, less of her would be my suggestion. But then again, when you make an album this good who am I to argue with excellence? Good job Famine.