Pensées Nocturnes – Douce Fange

Style: Black Metal, Symphonic Metal, Avant-Garde Metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Andy
Country: France
Release date: 21 January, 2022

When the average metalhead imagines the cultural heart of black metal, their minds likely drift to the fjords and churches of Norway. Not so for me and other more “experimentally inclined individuals.” No, I think of the least likely of places: the land of baguettes, snails, and Eiffel towers. France, a relatively smaller metal market, churns out avant-garde and experimental black metal at a higher rate than just about anywhere else with bands like Plebeian Grandstand, Blut aus Nord, and Creature all calling France home, and Pensées Nocturnes certainly got the memo, their latest offering a feast featuring a sonically overwhelming black metal core coated in orchestration, jazzy and folky flourishes, and a decidedly French vibe (it’s all about that cabaret influence). 

Kicking around the French underground for over a decade now, Pensées Nocturnes’ newest avant-garde opus unfurls like the acts of a crazed circus. Starting Douce Fange with a bang like a human cannon, “Veins Tâter d’mon Carrousel” sets the stage for the rest of the album’s manic ramblings, the theatrical screams recalling the likes of fellow Frenchman Igorrr, as does the constantly shifting avant-garde songwriting acrobatics. Second track “Quel Sale Bourreau” follows suit, going in as many directions as a flipping acrobat–starting with a double bass run and a brass section straight out of the Diablo Swing Orchestra playbook before launching into Imperial Triumphant-esque black metal insanity, contrasted, naturally, by more French operatics. The remaining seven tracks similarly distort genre lines, waltzing about almost as if a metal-ized excerpt of “Entry of the Gladiators,” trapezing from one insane circus attraction of a song to the next. This consistent stylistic inconsistency does have its own drawbacks, though.

The album’s cover excellently depicts what it feels like to listen to Douce Fange as a lover of symphonic black metal, featuring a slightly deranged chef concocting a decadent feast that is almost too much. However, one doesn’t so much need to feast on the whole pig like the cover suggests but rather a few choice cuts. Likewise, the complete instrumental insanity–juggling a mix of the normal metal suspects of distorted guitar, bass, and blasting drums, as well as accordion, saxophone, trumpet, double bass, and others–primarily contributes to the album’s memorability as a whole. Unfortunately, the collective craziness also leads to Douce Fange’s greatest pitfall, which is that while the entire affair is raucously fun, recalling momentary highlights–heck, even differentiating between insane tracks–even almost a dozen listens later becomes difficult. Balancing so many different elements of their songs makes the tightrope walk sway a little bit, but the band still manages to cross safely. How could they not with explosions of sound like in “Le Tango du Vieuloniste” where French folk music plays atop Folterkammer-esque neoclassical black metal and vocal operatics, cut out with glissando-filled trem picking à la Panegyrist?

Those minor memorability problems hardly detract from what Douce Fange is: the craziest, most fun French album of the year thus far. Varied songwriting and instrumentation necessitate good production lest the whole shebang become a mess like a lion-taming accident, and thankfully Pensées Nocturnes delivers on that account with a wonderful production by Frédérick Gervais (an experienced veteran of the French black metal scene), sporting a clear mix and master with ample room to let all the aforementioned instruments breathe. Moreover, the many styles of vocals sound especially fantastic on top of the mix, especially during moments like the a cappella choral ending of “PN Mais Costaud !” 

All in all, Pensées Nocturnes crafted not only an excellent French black metal record that fits in perfectly with the experimental tendencies of their musical peers but also an amazing French album steeped in its cultural heritage, surrounded by the centuries-old French icon of the circus. This album truly feels like the “most French” a black metal album can possibly be, and it’s glorious in its symphonic and songwriting excesses. Vive la cirque! Vive la Pensées Nocturnes!

Recommended tracks: Quel sale Bourreau, Saignant et à Poings, Le Tango du Vieuloniste, Fin Défunt
Recommended for fans of: Igorrr, Imperial Triumphant, Sigh
You may also like: Panegyrist, Le Grand Guignol
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Pensées Nocturnes is:
– Léon Harcore (everything, vocals)
With guests:
– Gégé (accordian, keyboards, vocals)
– Le Grand (bass)
– Jacky (drums)
– Roro (guitars)
– Zakouille (guitars)