Review Summary: Satan's foul breath in audio form
When one descends the rusty ladder leading to the underworld that is extreme metal journalism, the frequency at which one encounters words of a certain hellish nature multiplies exponentially. Consider the fact that such journalism tends to employ the same 100 or so words from a much richer parent language, and the silliness that is extreme metal reviewing becomes all the clearer. Whether it’s a putrid, corrosive, tonsil-gnashing sludge record; a murderous, abrasive, throat-disintegrating death metal cut; a chilling, feral, diaphragm-slaughtering black metal LP; or an eyeball-gouging, loose eyeball-guzzling, baby cheek-curb stomping hardcore track, the adjectives tend to overstate the drama just a little bit. I’ve listened to my fair share of extreme metal records from across the spectrum, and though my eardrums have never quite burst upon an album’s opening blast beat nor have I vomited in utter disgust as a blackened death crooner belted out his opening gurgle, I’d hazard a guess that none of you have had these experiences either.
Extreme metal reviews tend to incorporate more than a little exaggeration no matter how good the record truly is, and, when the reviewer starts flooding the page with the atrociously addictive phrasing I’ve described above, it can be difficult to discern what the reviewer truly wants to say about a record. As such, I tend to approach underground acts who receive heaps and heaps of praise with a healthy degree of skepticism. To circle around, A Nos Morts is no more exceptional than any other low-key metal release because the current literature surrounding Pilori’s full-length debut conforms to the aforementioned industry standards. I’ll leave most of the Internet exploration to you readers out there, but suffice it to say that one reviewer describes this record as having “pants-***tingly large fangs,” which leaves me with far more questions than it answers.
Forget all this nonsense. Pilori’s A Nos Morts is a superb, short-and-sweet slice of blackened death with a healthy dose of sludge to stretch the record’s 24 minute runtime. Pilori don’t innovate too much here on a micro scale, but they execute a blend of the previously named genres in an exciting manner that shifts from track to track. Death metal-influenced harshes are cut with fuzz to produce blackened atmospheres (“Divine Comedie”) sludgy riffage merges with complex drum fills to birth the occasional death-doom madness (“A la Recherche du Temps Perdu”, “Sous mes Mains”), and blast beats underscore punky riffs in a loud proclamation of the group’s hardcore influences (“La Grande Terreur”, “Poursuite du Vent”). For such a short LP, Pilori make the most of each track’s runtime, specifically by synthesizing their various influences into a new sonic combination on each track. The album’s runt of the litter, “Roi des Rats,” features one of the heaviest riffs of 2020 laced over growls reminiscent of deathcore before quickly fading into the title track’s listlessly paced dissonant chords.
Sound changes between tracks such as the one I just described define and dominate this record. Groups often run the risk of holding the listener’s attention too tenuously when they release as short an LP as A Nos Morts, but Pilori overcome this potential shortfall by infusing a fresh idea into each track. This isn’t to say that the record lacks cohesion at all. A Nos Morts marches logically through its brief runtime, spending a short moment at each nexus of Pilori’s influences before hopping to another. The listener can view A Nos Morts as a cursory exploration of what makes Pilori tick and of Pilori’s unique take on the blackened death scene. In this sense, the record succeeds as the odious, scabrous, ball-bustingly brutal record all metal reviewers would hope it to be.
