You mean the new Blut aus Nord was nothing special.
The new Funeral Mist is fucking great, it's really a genre of it's own.
Sure, it's not going to please depressive/slow paced black metal fans.
Except they were the ones who set the trend.No, Funeral Mist is another trend-riding, plastic orthodox black metal band.
Remains of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Souls isn't really a LLN release though I think. Vampires of Black Imperial Blood is the only LLN full-length from Mütiilation really.French BM probably has better depth than any scene outside of Norway IMO. Les Légions Noires made a fair bit of crap but there's some amazing albums out there: Mutiilation's Remains of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul being the best of them. Torgeist, Vlad Tepes and Belketre all have at least one masterpiece in their catalogues.
DsO are the best Black Metal band of this decade.
Epheles is one of my favorites from France. Griffar's Of Witches and Celts is fantastic as well, and Hirilorn is definitely great.
Belenos, however, stands out as the best of the French BM bands to me. Their demo work is absolute AAA stuff and somehow they managed to release two albums that were even better than the demos. Shame their most recent two albums haven't been up to their standards, but in the grand scheme of black metal they were still better than what a lot of bands have done.
Save for Watain's newest one, I'd say they are up there with DsO too. But I don't disagree with your post.
Except they were the ones who set the trend.
Btw, the LLN-bands are the best bands to come out of France. Vlad Tepes, Belketre, Mütiilation > DsO, BAN, Peste Noire, etc.