Band:	Sordide
Album:	Hier Déjà Mort
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	February 15, 2019
A review by:	RaduP

01. Prelude
02. La Peur Du Noir
03. Hier Déjà Mort
04. Le Cadavre Ou L'offrande
05. La Chute
06. Carapace
07. La Saveur De La Fièvre
08. Postlude

Black metal has had a good long run and it has evolved in a myriad of new directions. Sordide is a black metal band signed to Throatruiner Records. If you know who that is, you're probably licking your lips by now.

Sordide is a French black metal trio whose only connection to another major band I could find so far is that guitarist Nehluj also played in Hyadningar and is playing in Ataraxie, but most of their members are part of some sludge or black metal bands that are not (yet) on MS. They have been polishing their own brand of weird black metal over the course of, so far and including this one, three albums. So what gives?

It being black metal there's obviously a lot of atmosphere in this, but also incredible emphasis on tight songwriting. But instead of it being melodic, it's closer to being technical in the sense that something like Portal is both technical and esoterically atmospheric. Chaotic, sprawling, and surprisingly bass-heavy for a black metal album. Mountains of dissonance above it, Hier Déjà Mort's technical songwriting takes it in progressive and avant-garde directions without losing any of the vicious impact it has. Because this is some strong black metal.

What makes it so strong is the subtle but firm post-hardcore influence, which is obvious from both the sludge bands that some of the members play in as well as the hardcore-focused label that they're currently signed to. There's a lot of primitive-sounding moments in this album; check out "La Chute", for example, which melds vicious hardcore energy into vitriolic black metal. So the contrast between slower atmosphere-building, faster hardcore, and intricate sections is not that big, so much so that it blends seamlessly. And it is that seamlessness that really gives the whole record a slight avant-garde feel, because even though there is nothing especially new on the record, I can't really think of any band that has achieved a sound like this or would sound this good doing it.

Hier Déjà Mort is effective in being a straightforward black metal album, a forward-thinking one, and a bone-shattering one as well. Rarely does one find a single black metal album that can play in so many leagues without sounding disjointed. And that has audible bass for fucking once. And the cover art is also pretty dope. Dive in.