This third album marks the end for Diablation.
Four years after its creation, the band made up of Viscount Vampyr Arkames (vocals, Ad Inferna), V. Orias A. (guitar, Ad Inferna), Maximilien B. (bass, Bâ’a) and IX (drums, Eradikal Insane, ex-Corpus Diavolis) unveils Irrévérence, on Osmose Productions.
Diablation first plunges us into anguish with 144000, where bells and choirs welcome us, paving the way for Eternel where ice-cold Black Metal roots are reborn in the company of menacing vocal parts. Scathing harmonics perfectly complement the band’s frantic yet relatively majestic approach, which also uses a few samples to punctuate its march towards a melodious final, then on to the hypnotic Purification, where the guitar adopts ethereal tones. Even when the vocalist goes wild, the fascinating riffs envelop us and lock us in ceremonial tones before becoming more aggressive again, pouring out veritable torrents of darkness interspersed with declarations, before Par La Haine returns to surrender to a certain quietude on its first moments of life. The melancholy composition is shaken by bursts of fury, but remains anchored in a heavy atmosphere until it calms down again to give way to Chrysanthèmes Au Nouveau Monde, which offers an epic approach to the surrounding darkness. The few pauses the band allows us are followed by the fierce, heady blazes the musicians weave once again on Ad Universum, where the aggression becomes even more present, something that can be felt in the visceral vocal parts. The final is more soothing, with a gentler edge on the lead parts, but the quartet give themselves over to fury once again when Le Dernier Roi follows, tinting the oppressive atmosphere already raging around us with dissonance and building to its climax, at which point the sound imperceptibly dies, breathing its last with a burst.
Although its demise was relatively sudden and unexpected, Diablation left its mark on the French scene with its dark touch. Irrévérence is the swan song of a band inspired by both darkness and Old School roots.
90/100