Regarde les Hommes Tomber: S/T
Here we go again, time to get redundant up in this. French hardcore, especially of the post variety, dominates. It’s one of the most atmospheric, creative, and musically confrontational hotbeds in the modern scene. We were first enlightened on this subject several years ago, and since then have been continually enlightened, endlessly enlightened. We’re so enlightened at this point that we have the ability to bypass nirvana and create an entirely new universe just for us that involves listened to French hardcore forever. Combining three musical genres in both their own past and direction, REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER (all caps as they seem to enjoy), or via Twitter as RLHT, was formed in 2011 with backgrounds in hardcore, black metal, and death metal. “Blackened hardcore oh no,” you say. “Oh yes,” we reply. Carried by the awesome Season of Mist, these guys came out of nowhere with tombs bursting in their wake, whatever that means, because we just made it up. Combining three genres like this was no easy challenge, but hey, they’re from France, and when we saw that and ‘hardcore’ in the same press release, we said, yeah, no way this can’t be good. Correct, as usual. Call it experience, call it mastery of the art of criticism, but we’re right again. Regardes les Hommes Tomber is some of the sickest, most blackened and charred hardcore we’ve come across with just the right amount of each genre from which it was derived.
Regarde les Hommes Tomber translates into English as “see how they fall,” so it’s got a nice poignant way of setting the stage of sound before you pop it in, provided you took the time to look it up as we did. If that didn’t do it, the reference to what is undoubtedly the Tower of Babel on the front should work even better. In addition, the clear Biblical references in the song titles provides an obvious narration for the work as a whole. Criticism and condemnation of Christianity is sometimes overdone in the metal scene; it’s easy for us to get sick of the whole 666 thing and all of this stale Satanism, enough that should we wish to miss a day of work, we need only call in and say “hey, I just listened to some anti-Christian black metal.” “Oh, for the love of God, stay home, hell, take a week off.” But here the direction is different. The meaning behind the lyrics is used more in a sense of universal truth, with the meaning veiled thinly under Christian concepts. Thus, it’s much better for it. If anything it’s a reinvention of it, for, as the liner notes states, “headphones and darkness highly recommended,” meaning it’s a dark reinvention. Listening to it will basically turn a sunny day into a cataclysmic eclipse.
The album opens with a prelude featuring subterranean drums and absolutely dismal, heart-wrenching chords with just the right amount of sludge. That’s one thing about Regarde les Hommes Tomber that makes it stand out, the combination of the three genres mentioned earlier in this review takes out all the superfluous and leaves the necessary. So it’s got the darkness of black metal minus the silliness, minus the typical “hatred” towards the world and all of the spikes and paint. In addition, it has the groove of hardcore without the whiner-vocals from granny’s basement or the ear gauges, or the Converse. And it has the atmosphere of post-rock without the Urban Outfitters and with just the right touch of sludgy grime. After they spend a little over four minutes building your mood via the prelude, or rather deadening it into the dank earth, we enter into the gritty proper of this release, with “Wanderer of Eternity.” Combine the above with vocals that move from roars, to screams, to wails, to echoing moans in a cave, and it all comes together. The grooves on these songs are incredible, sometimes driven by repetition they cleverly manipulate from single-note lines to full chords built on the same structure. Other times they come out with tempo shifts and sweeping, epic chording. Some of the lines completely tear open your heart, and the variety in beat is especially noticeable. Hell, it’s all noticeable, really, the amount of variety these guys have found in the three-genre approach is commendable. Looking forward to our in-the-near-future interview (currently preparing questions for them), as well as future work.
Regardes les Hommes Tomber Official Facebook
Written by Stanley Stepanic
Regarde les Hommes Tomber: S/T
Season of Mist
4.5 / 5
