Band:	Borgne
Album:	Royaume Des Ombres
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Blackened industrial metal
Release date:	June 12, 2012
A review by:	Doc G.

01. Fall Of The Lost Souls
02. Suffer As I Paid My Grave
03. In The Realm Of The Living I'm Dead
04. Only The Dead Can Be Heard
05. All These Screams Through Me
06. The Last Thing You Will See

It seems like lately things are being flipped around; the more typical the cover artwork, the less typical the music. First Agruss, now Borgne. Yeah, it is black metal, and yes, it does have a similar appeal to the of Agruss, yet Borgne is a sound of its own breed, despite being compiled of commonly used components.

FYI - They sound almost nothing like Agruss. To clarify this nonsense, you'd have to pop this in to understand the similar feel - and that is the sound of an overwhelming sense of suffocation. A cram-packed atmosphere with not a square inch of breathing room.

Picture this; for some conceivable reason, you're sitting there listening to Dimmu Borgir, and you think to yourself; this dark orchestral aspect would be put to a lot better use if they shoved it into a more atmospheric direction, and threw some grit back into it. That's what Borgne is like. A crushing, mostly plodding atmospheric black metal band.

It's great when that's what's happening with the music. To promise that Royaume des Ombres is an entirely atmospheric, or entirely original sounding album would be a pretty hefty lie. They have a tendency to speed up into some really generic sounding black metal occasionally. While this offer of variety should normally be lauded, here it only pronounces their strengths, and that is the brooding, atmospheric sound.

Setting aside a few missteps into territory too frequently explored, Borgne definitely have a strong enough sound otherwise to make Royaume des Ombres a worthwhile listen.