AMESOEURS - "Amesoeurs" - REVIEWS

[Emi]

http://www.addictif-zine.com/chroniques/lire/28/amesoeurs

On réduit souvent, et à raison il est vrai, le black metal à une musique pour barbares sanguinaires et sataniques, aussi extrêmes dans leur art que dans leur pensée philosophique.
Mais dans tous les genres, il y a des exceptions, des anomalies, des francs-tireurs. Amesœurs est de ces catégories-ci. Ces musiciens du sud de la France, dont les états de service forcent le respect (Alcest, Peste Noire, Forgotten Woods), viennent bousculer les règles établies du black metal avec un second album à la fois imprévu et d'une clairvoyance quasi mystique. La cruauté du metal extrême reste bien présente, mélancolique, violente, suffocante, ténébreuse, mais elle est constamment contrastée par des instants post-punk, new-wave, shoegazing et même pop. Cette superposition invraisemblable de sonorités disparates (My Bloody Valentine / Darkthone, Joy Division / Bathory) trouve pourtant le chemin d'une cohésion parfaite. Amesœurs, le disque, explore très finement le spleen moderne, n'oubliant ni l'angoisse oppressante, ni les états vaporeux qu'elle peut provoquer. Un tel réalisme ne peut être que salutaire. - Frank Frejnik

 

[Emi]

http://www.musiquemachine.com/reviews/reviews_template.php?id=2312


French Post-Black metal band Amesoeurs self titled debut is a memorable & distictive mixture of black metal, metal craft in general, 80’s indie Shoe-gazing guitar female pop, New wave wondering bass lines & shimmering, dramatic Post- rock. I think the thing that really makes the album so special & rewarding is the way the band mix together all the different genre traits into such an approachable yet still daring whole; it’s an album where black metal grimness feels total at home with harmonic and longing 80’s guitar lines laced with hazy female indie pop vocals. And where one track you’ll be surrounded by dreamy epic & sentimental piano wonderings, & the next track you been sliced into by chugging black trash craft topped with black metal yelps & grunts. But it never sounds contrived or ‘lets see what we can throw in next’ it always sounds completely natural, unforced, emotional & very enjoyable. So it’s a really pity to read that this is the bands first & last album since the band has now broken-up; as this really feels like the start of something rather wonderful & distinct in the already quite distinctive French Black metal/ Post-black metal scene.
Amesoeurs self titled is a very creative, flowing & highly rewarding album that aptly & perfectly balances grim & blacked elements with melodic yet slightly melancholy 80’s indie pop vibe. This certainly stands as one of the great post-black metal debuts in recent memoery & one of best debut albums of this year. It just such a pity we wont be hearing anything else from the project.

 

[Langoustator]

From avantgarde-metal.com:

I admit it: when the topic is Black Metal and its various manifestations one of the last countries which springs to my mind is france. The only bands I knew from there were NEHEMA, MÜTIILATION and SETH, and the last I have heard from any of these bands was years ago. So now I am listening to AMESOEURS, a name I have heard mentioned several times before but somehow ignored due to explorations into other genres than BM.

One of the genres I have started to take an interest into for example was post rock, so what AMESOEURS deliver with their debut album (and sadly, their last one at the same time – the band has disbanded just before the release of this album) is something hitting exactly the right nerve. Basically, the album is post rock combined with Black Metal; and both elements are executed just as I like it. The post rock parts are melancholic, melodic yet sometimes upbeat, while the Black Metal passages are fast as hell underlined with shredding guitars (which are more on the depressive and dreamy rather than on the raw side, like ENSLAVED for example).

The unusual is that main songwriter Neige (also from ALCEST) seldom uses his rasping Black Metal vocals, even in the menacing parts – main vocalist is piano player Audrey S. Her vocals are clear throughout the whole album (except for some fitting wailing and screaming in "Heurt" which is, to me, also the best example of what AMESOERS is about if you don't know them) and thus one has to draw parallels to JOYLESS - and from there to the almighty FORGOTTEN WOODS, whose influence is omnipresent. The female vocals fit surprisingly well, and while the Black Metal and post rock parts sound a little bit forced onto each other sometimes, the vocals do a very good job to provide a link between them and thus making the album sound whole.

"Amesoeurs" was really a big surprise for me, and the more sad it is that this was the first and the last album. Track 6 states it: "I XIII V XIX XV V XXI XVIII XIX – IX XIX – IV V I IV" (read: Amesoeurs – Is – Dead). Really a pity, I shudder at the thought what might have become of them had they not disbanded. Now the only thing left for me is to hint at a little easter egg: The tracklist resembles a "Space Invaders"-screen (with 00 credits – a clue for a "Game Over"?). Black Metal, Post Rock, Video Games and strange humour – this is all it needs to win me over.

Tentakel P.

 

[Mancan]

This band deserves esteem, really good and original!
It 'a very fine music, exciting music.
My personal congratulations to you and to the label manager Emi.


Mancan
Ecnephias
www.ecnephias.com
www.myspace.com/ecnephiaskingdom

 

[Emi]

This band deserves esteem, really good and original!
It 'a very fine music, exciting music.
My personal congratulations to you and to the label manager Emi.


Mancan
Ecnephias
www.ecnephias.com
www.myspace.com/ecnephiaskingdom

thanks, too bad the call it quits