Formed in 2008, Moonreich joins the growing foundation of French Black Metal with their debut full-length offering, Loi Martiale. While their 2009 EP Zoon Politikon didn't really find the band being introduced to a wider audience, staying a strictly underground release, the band finds a home on De Tenebrarum Principio, a partner label through ATMF Records, who has put out a good amount of these more underground Black Metal artists to a wider range of listeners. But, does that mean that Moonreich is one of the stronger acts of this specific underground scene that deserves the extra exposure?
Just by the introduction on "Le Regard du Pendyu", it's clear the band has a pretty strong tie to war-related themes, especially with the sounds of gun fire and bullets tearing through flesh, an injured man dying, and a sound effect from what sounds like a character dying from an old 16-bit video game. This set up takes up a solid minute and a half before the music actually kicks in, and the atmosphere of this track sets up a very Noir, yet dark and bleak atmosphere that one could easily place on a dark, rainy Nazi-era period of time, all set up by the dark and emotional guitars and raspy, yet sometimes somewhat gutteral vocals against drumming that is nicely varied, but still sticks with the overall flow and beat of the music. Sometimes the track goes into a brief moment of blast beats, but not in a random, seizure-like approach, having a more calculated and precise point of assault to them, unlike some bands in the general underground Black Metal scene, as well as those above it, trying to forge paths into the third wave of the style. This track does a fantastic job setting up the atmosphere for the rest of the album, though not all tracks quite capture the emotional drive this track has.
The band is also not afraid to utilize ambient effects such as the pops and crackles typically associated with a record player's audio while playing a record, but mostly with the silent moments. This, as well as well orchestrated and suiting pianos first appear on "Les Psaumes D'Iscariote", which sets up the time period the recording is going for perfectly. All of this is captured with the dark atmosphere of the recording, which is richly enhanced by the deeper, somewhat raw production quality of the recording, all making the material seem driven by the bass, and creating a bleak environment with no sign of light anywhere. For the most part, this works with the largely slower paced songs on the album, but when the band does manager to pick up speed, the intensity of the material grows, and the coldest side of the band typically shines through, such as on "En Mon Ame et Conscience" which has a fast tempo foundation, but does manage to drop into slower moments, all utilizing a chaotic Black Metal lead guitar pattern through much of the song to make it stand out nicely.
While the vocals suit the overall tone of the album, at times they feel a little restrained. sometimes it just doesn't quite seem as emotionally driven as the rest of the material, but rather a little more restrained and generic in comparison, regardless of how well they sound with the music. The faster paced tracks on this release seem to suit the vocals better, such as on "Le Reveil du Pendu", where the music is geared more towards being far more aggressive instead of fixating on having music that is emotionally driven. Outside the vocals, the only other issue would be the role the keyboards play at times. Loi Martiale gives off that very Noir feeling to it on pretty much every track, though sometimes it's not fully captured. Sure the faster songs make it a little harder to picture such an atmosphere against a dark musical landscape, but the title track, "Loi Martiale", utiolizes the keyboards into an almost epic viking atmosphere, taking away from the atmospheric set up from "Le Regard de Pendu", and actually giving off a more modern Dimmu Borgir feel to it, while the album seems to take ques from the more appropriate earlier Dissection material. The only time this sort of change in atmosphere works for the recording is during "En Preperant L'assault", which has a more grand and epic vibe to it that is simply superb, and in the end does fit in with the already established atmosphere to make it not sound completely out of place, as well as shows some talent from the band, and manages to stay fresh and offer up enough smooth transitioned changes throughout the keep the listener attentive.
For an emotive French Black Metal album, Loi Martiale is not a bad release, but there's still some work that could have been done to make it better. The atmosphere is there, and the overall deeper sound of the music works wonders, but the vocals feel like they hold the music back at times. On top of some songs feeling out of place, and the addition of bacgpipes during the last track of the effort, and a few songs feeling a little drawn out near the end, it's a good debut full-length from the group, but that's about it. Moonreich clearly has a good direction though, and they just need to focus on really driving the atmosphere of the recording further if that's what the group plans to do on future releases. Loi Martiale is worth a spin, but it won't stay in the player long, though there are many moments that will have you coming back for more after a while.
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