Përl doesn’t loose time.
In 2020, the french band created in 2008 by Aline Boussaroque (vocals/guitar/synthesizers), Thibault Delafosse (drums) and Bastien Venzac (bass) was recording Les Maîtres du Silence, its third album.
Helped by Etienne Sarthou (Deliverance, Freitot, Karras, ex-AqME) on recording and mixing, but also by Magnus Lindberg (Cult of Luna) on mastering, the band pushes farther its melting of Post-Hardcore, Shoegaze, Post Black and various ambient influences. Varulv, the first song, immediately awakes those airy and heady tones while welcoming french clean vocals which is sometimes transformed into howlings. The few Prog influences are easily recognizable, and they also come to life on the heavy Je parle au sauvage. Musicians feed this both oppressive and hypnotic ambience with dissonant leads, seizing melodies and a dark groove, before a way quieter break. Quietness is also the element that allows Monarques to catch us into a melancholic universe before placing heavier and more haunting parts, wonderfully serving those cryptic lyrics. L'(h)être balafré offers a weighing calmness, that let us guess rage under those soaring harmonics, then it will finally set fire to the rhythmic, creating some kind of nearly occult intensity.
Le veilleur comes next, offering heady tones and far away but still so visceral howlings, then a groovy, heavy and jerky rhythmic comes to complete the painting. Sur le seuil mesmerizes us again with mystical vocals alighting on soaring riffs that are slowly strengthened before wearing a thick and weighing saturation, then Le jour des corneilles comes to bring this highly contrasted sound between anguish, blackness and softness. Calmness slowly gets erased before exploding into a violent rhythmic surmounted by howlings, and even if riffs become softer, we still feel this underlying rage, accompanied by a shamisen part played by Guillaume Fiat. The song is built on this duality that never leaves soft sonorities alone, then Et dans l’aube places us in front of a wall of seizing violence to close the record, then airy wisps turn one last time before silence comes.
With Les Maîtres du Silence, Përl made an important step. A step that confirms their quite eclectic and seizing sound, but that also strengthens it. Raw sounds clash with an explosive softness, that sets fire to blackness for an intense reaction.
90/100