Band:	Shezmu
Album:	À Travers Les Lambeaux
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	July 29, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. À Travers Les Lambeaux
02. Cérémonie Magique Pour La Bataille De Meggido
03. Ode À Hathor
04. Interlude - La Rage
05. Les Secrets Des Ziggourats
06. L'arrivée Des Temps Déchus
07. Lex Talionis

Quebecois death metal that isn't technical isn't something I saw that often. One based on ancient mythology is even rarer.

I was immediately attracted to the cover art depicting what I assume are the vultures feasting upon Prometheus' liver in an eternal punishment for stealing the fire of the Gods. Wacky stuff, and quite gory. But gore is pretty much the game in death metal, considering how half of death metal is about gore. You know what else is full of gore? Cronos devouring his offspring, Marduk killing Tiamat, Yahweh drowning pretty much the entirety of the Earth sans a pair of each kind, and a lot of other instances that made me wish I studied mythology more. Bottom line is, gore and violence has been part of our lives and beliefs for millennia, and it is only lately that we've been able to live lives that isolated from violence. But it's no wonder the thought of it still makes us tingle. Gods killing gods, eternal punishment, wars and massacres, human sacrifice, the gnashing of teeth.

So here we have Shezmu, whose death metal is blended with chunky bits of black and doom metal, and a ritual ambient / folk interlude in "La Rage" to get the mythological theme its due outside the lyrics. But for the rest of Á Travers Les Lambeaux, Shezmu are bludgeoning to most accurately portray the violence of our myths and ancient selves. And when I said "chunky bits of" I meant that their death metal swims in a goo of black and doom metal, capturing the atmosphere and unrelenting energy of both of them. The music here has no problem switching the goo it swims in, and it never sounds like they are forcing the sound to go inorganically into a more black / doom direction. Also, they don't really care that much for buildups, as they seemingly assume that when a song starts, the listener should be naturally ready for a bludgeoning assault of riffs.

Riffs, as I said, is something you'll find galore here, as it is expected in death metal, but something that's great about Shezmu is how they were able to make engaging songs that are both just over 2 minutes long and ones that are almost 8, and it never feels like they're forcing it. The album is rather short so that helps, but they switch things up enough times, I would've liked stuff like the ritualistic interlude to be fully integrated like they are on the ending of the album. The band really have grown since their demo releases, not only benefiting for a much better production, but also expanding the duo into a trio with the addition of a bassist. The presence of the bass gives not only more depth and heaviness, but there are a few doomy moments where it gets its chance to shine. And last but not least, it manages to avoid one of the biggest pitfalls of death metal (or metal in general) in terms of vocals: they're not one-dimensional.

There's still some way to go for Shezmu, but they've already shown growth and great ability. And they reminded me that I should read more about mythology.