Lubie satanique dépravée

Hailing from France, the industrial black metallers Diapsiquir started 2015 by re-releasing the debut album “L.S.D.” which was originally launched in 2003.

The band’s sound is mainly characterized by sharpened, fast and very raw guitar riffs. Having in count the industrial vein, the mechanic drumming work is highly sonic and even inhuman. The very long songs – majorly above 10 minutes of running time – include varied structures that define a complete and sometimes complex body wandering between speedy passages, dissonant moments that appear a lot of times within slower sections – yet always dusky – and also some technical details delivered by the guitars. We can also find a brief moment of avant-garde taste in the first track “Satan Postmortem” due to a quasi-symphonic arrangement.

Amidst the industrial chaos that seems to foresee the end of the world through mechanical rage, it’s possible to find some melancholic riffs that even so are comprised by some fastness that doesn’t allow the listener to enter a depressive spiral. Still, the apocalyptic melody is there, for example in “MAsickLAsickDEsick”. In “G.A.S.” there’s an interesting and disturbing detail due to a circus-themed approach delivered both by the guitars and sound samples. Some songs are alternated by short interludiums that raise a neoclassical vein through a futuristic sight due to the mechanical and electronic arrangements. Vocals exhale the typical vociferations regarding the French black metal scene – sometimes recalling Peste Noire – and there’s also some verses intoned by robotic voices, once again raising the band’s industrial side.

As a final note, let’s mention that the programmed percussion is part of this sub-genre’s universe, but sometimes it sounds a little bit synthetic – that’s the danger of programmed drums. That’s an aspect that may decrease the musical organic and may sound strange for some unused ears. Nevertheless, that’s just a little negative point among a well-achieved work that’s essentially headed by astonishing riffs and oscillating structures.

It's interesting to see what a band's past was like. Some people are familiar only with one or two releases, completely disregarding others. This often leaves out many a gem that I feel most musicians probably worked quite hard on.

The same seems to have happened here. Whereas Diapsiquir's second full-length garnered the attention of labels and avant-garde music fans all over the place, their first true album was a bit more within the norm. It's not trying to be absolutely crazy like "Virus S.T.N." but rather construct an atmosphere through a large selection of deliciously melodic, bouncy black metal riffs and a plethora of strange sounds that come along for the journey through the cracked minds of some of France's strangest metal musicians in years.

See, with Diapsiquir it's not just about using the riffs. Those are certainly important, and they often conjure up a very intense feeling of mentally cracked melancholy or brooding anger, but the use of several different classical instrument synths and strange electronics adds that extra something special to the music. The first track, "Satan Postmortem", showcases a very classy usage of this in the opening moments. Quiet tunes played on piano float through accompanied by spacey walls of sound, before fading out and introducing a delicate music box that plays while the guitars introduce themselves. They then proceed to grow and transform into more decadent riffs accompanied by strange, somewhat disturbing sounds of a vacuum effect. Once these finally fade away you're treated to a long song packed with tons of peculiar riffs and rapid tempo changes out of the blue accompanied by Toxik's more well-known style of pissed off shouting - entirely in french, of course! All the riffs are just layered in sweet, gooey distortion too. It works extremely well here, both on the thicker, heavier riffs and the thinner more black-metal oriented ones. Finally, the end of the song has the music box return briefly before giving way to a rather epic section of slower riffs and disemboweling bass that plows forward relentlessly.

Keep in mind, that was just the description for ONE song. ALL of the songs are constructed like this - they're very long, packed with tons of different riffs that stick in your head from the moment you hear them. They're very complex, and you'll probably become confused if you don't give the songs your absolute attention, but they do all they bloody can to keep it. Toxik's vocals are frequently fucked around with through various electronic distortions mediums, becoming layered in static or sounding like they're coming from a loudspeaker. They even switch up almost as frequently as the music, going from cleans to spoken words to shouts seamlessly. Very rarely does this complicated manner of constructing songs out of pure crazed black metal goodness really go all that wrong. The title track sadly feels a bit bloated, but it still has plenty of memorable moments and cool things happening within. I think I may even enjoy it more with repeated listens. The sampling seems to be used a bit strangely here at times, with the use of Clint Mansell's "Requiem For A Dream" popping up somewhat randomly on "G.A.S.".

Finally, I'd like to briefly bring up the closing track, "999 Torture Aposidae". I have no fucking idea what this is. Toxik sings happily in his usual pissed off voice while an accordion accompanies him and slowly increases in speed over time alongside the drum machine till it all comes to an end and some quiet chords are played in the last minute of the album. It's a very cool track and definitely suits the "French sounds of urban decay" the band appear to be going for, and it's also the shortest track on the album (barring the 39 second interlude). It makes me picture Toxik wandering around with the accordion in a big deserted prison, singing like a madman. Great for listening to late at night or on gray cloudy days.

All in all, this album is still very well done and a great slab of mentally cracked, highly melodic black metal, but it's somewhat apparent that they were still getting completely comfortable with their sound. There are moments that seem as though they really weren't necessary here and there, and the drum machine is mixed painfully loud. It has a really strange sound to it so even the snare sounds like cymbals, which I dislike but can get used to. In the end though the riffing and atmosphere maintained throughout more than makes up for the slip-ups. If you can tolerate the production job, you're in for some wonderfully high quality french black metal from one of the best bands in France. Hail Diapsiquir!

Highlights: Satan Postmortem, G.A.S., 999 Torture Aposidae