France doesn’t cease to bombard us with incredibly good metal. The newest on the list is Déluge and their debut album Æther.

Musically, it’s a sort of atmospheric post black metal with tidal blast beats and a barrage of distortion. Not that these attributes are uncommon in the genre, but they’re prominent and well-executed here. The axis of Déluge seems to be on the ebb and flow of dissonance in their chordal progressions, like the waves. It’s a really good approach that makes for an always moving portrait that is only rarely immobile, and even then it serves some sort of goal within the song.

The most atmospheric piece here is “Klarträumer”, a 9-minute instrumental piece with plenty of field recordings and emotions. It’s also the longest song on the album and it shows that they don’t need to rely on lyrics to convey feelings, a story. In German, “Klartraum” is a lucid dream, so I believe that this song could be transcribed as “Lucid Dreams”.

The other songs are pretty much alike, constituting a solid monolith. They rarely stray from what they do, but they do it well-enough to keep it enjoyable from beginning to end, if atmospheric or post black metal is your thing. Plus, they certainly have one of the best-looking album artworks I’ve ever seen.

A press copy of the album made this review possible.