ninehertz

In a fledgling year that I've already been to two gigs in Sheffield headlined by Montréal bands (Population II and Dopethrone) and have been listening to a lot of Big|Brave, another native of that city, here's another that has struck a chord. There seems to be something special in the Québécois waters.

This is - lets get this down right away - a weird album. The tag of "experimental doom" drew me in, but doesn't go close to describing what lurks within. There is such a variance in approaches across tracks, you're not sure where its coming from, or as a new track starts, where it is going. Yet that just makes you stay longer. There are numbers of almost drone like ambience, slow and occasionally laborious builds, bleeps and minimalist noises scattered throughout - probably taking up the median of tracks.

And then there are others - like Ceremony (for the head in the bucket), where drums drive the pattern, atypical guitars above, vocals shining atop. I can't describe it, and for all the rocky start before this, where I'm unsure why I'm listening, this is why it's worth sticking to - because it doesn't sound specifically like anyone or any one genre in particular. That is a rarity that deserves patience. If I had to name it'd be similarly hard to put your finger on artists like Coltaine or Solar Halos, but a little bit spikier than that, and really I'm reaching just for the sake of some level of reference point.

Triade is another focal point. At 12 and a half minutes it naturally stands out, especially with its sparky loudness against the ambience around it, vocals here like an angry punk sermon, and a general hint of doom in the heavier ends. It creates this swirling tempestuous environment, and if you had to name one, this would be the album's stand alone highlight.

But that's to miss the point. La cathédrale engloutie is deliberately awkward, sounding like completely different moods or faces, perhaps an consequence of the fact is has been recorded over several sessions, over many years. Yet somehow these strange leaps of style, ambient to aggressive, invests you in the album, it feels like a specially curated piece of art, and to recommend merely a song would be to not tell the tale of a truly intriguing album.