Genres: progressive metal, metalcore, djent (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Jinjer, Ok Goodnight, Destiny Potato, Rolo Tomassi
Country: France
Release date: 12 January, 2024
I read Steven Wilson’s autobiography, Limited Edition of One, over the festive season. In it he discusses his art-pop project No-Man with Tim Bowness, originally called No Man Is an Island after a famous line from the 1624 John Donne poem ‘Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes’: “No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.” They shortened the name after a reviewer for Melody Maker magazine made the utterly destructive quip, “One man is a dickhead.”
Which leads us to No Terror in the Bang, a French sextet named for the Alfred Hitchcock quote “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it” and working in that djenty metalcore sphere represented by Jinjer but with a wilder sense of progressive experimentation. As we’ve just learned, if your band name is a sentence then there’s an awful lot of potential for devastating one-liners. Fortunately, these guys won’t have to change their name to No-Terror because I’ve no such devastating quips of my own to level at them, although I will say it’s a bit cumbersome to name yourself after an artistic ethos.
Opening track “Hostile” is a good encapsulation of what to expect on HEAL, opening with chaotic semi-shrieks and dissonant piano over angular riffs, working through eerie vocoder vocals and softer sections. Sofia Bortoluzzi’s vocal performances are the clear standout here. A superb modulator, effortlessly switching between belting cleans, lung-piercing screams, Jinjer-esque growls, slipping into softer registers of sombreness and vulnerability, as well as straddling the lines between spoken and sung, clean and harsh, she’s the thread that holds the entire project together.
But Bortoluzzi is but one tool in No Terror in the Bang’s toolbox (not to be confused with a Toolbox which is where Maynard stores his wine). The band regularly use glitch, keys calibrated to accompany an eighties horror film, and whiplash contrasts between crashing metal and lighter atmospheres. Most songs are constructed around core motifs: “Insolent” and “Monster” are defined by their angular repeated riffs, “Retch” by the contrast between its heavier and lighter sections, “Hostile” by the eerie vocoder motif, “Lulled by the Waves” by its post-rock style steady intensification, etc. Many of the same elements are utilised in different combinations and most of the time this pays off, although by the time you reach the title track, you begin to feel you’re retreading familiar ground. The record is definitely front-loaded and its focus on individual songs also comes at the expense of flow: HEAL feels like a collection of songs that could be arranged in any order.
In their social bios, No Terror in the Bang emphasise their interest in the contrast between light and dark and this is undeniably the most exciting facet of their sound. “Insolent” is a prime example, wending its way through chaotic Rolo Tomassi-esque mathcore before segueing into a vulnerable, piano-led middle section more redolent of Ok Goodnight or even Oceans of Slumber, ultimately exploding into full throttle metal once more. As mentioned before, it’s a reshuffling of a few elements that’s usually done to great effect, but it can’t quite carry the full forty-seven minutes of HEAL. That’s unfortunate, because in their best moments No Terror in the Bang manage to capture something quite magical.
The introduction to “Monster” is utterly sublime, as is the progression of “Lulled by the Waves” where the glimmering synthetic strings in the background provide a throughline as the song builds in force, while the punchy synth motif running through “OD” is great fun. No Terror in the Bang are at their best when blending all their weird elements together: angular riffs and madcap keys in constant contrast with softer piano and ambience, all tied together by Bortoluzzi. The later tracks on the album are less fresh mostly by dint of coming later, but they also drift a little further into generic Jinjer-esque metalcore.
No Terror in the Bang aren’t quite Hitchcock, they’re more like pre-1998 Brian de Palma: skilled progenitors of pastiche rather than innovation, their sound familiar from an array of sources but somehow blended into a solid musical identity all their own. HEAL delivers a big punch in a small package, and though its greatest hits come early and it falls just a little short of greatness it’s nevertheless a strong release to kick off 2024.
Recommended tracks: Insolent, Hostile, Monster
You may also like: Humavoid, Keoma
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitter
Label: Klonosphere Records – Facebook | Official Website
No Terror in the Bang is:
– Clément Bernard (guitar)
– Sofia Bortoluzzi (vocals)
– Brice Bouchard (bass)
– Etienne Cochin (guitar)
– Alexis Damien (drums, keys, orchestrations)
– Romain Greffe (piano, keys, orchestrations)
