Band:	Moonreich
Album:	Amer
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	May 2023

01. Of Swine And Ecstasy
02. Amer
03. Where We Sink
04. Astral Jaws
05. The Cave Of Superstition

Black metal has, by now, evolved so much and spread so globally (just this week, I heard a very decent black metal album from Sri Lanka) that it’s hard to venerate just one country in particular for its output, but the French scene really has produced an impressive array of great acts. Moonreich are a new name on my radar, but, based on Amer, it’s one that is both good enough and distinctive enough to merit some attention alongside all the other great names.

They’re not exactly a new name on the block; this is their fifth full-length record across a 15-year period also peppered with EP releases. Amer is a perfect place to introduce oneself to Moonreich, however, as it is a strong example of modern black metal, and the range of sounds one can incorporate into it. Take opening song “Of Swine And Ecstasy”, for example; to begin with, it’s arguably not even black metal, instead opting for a lower-end blackened death assault early on. The rampaging double basses and vicious tremolo riffs immediately sink hooks in, with the blackened textures and visceral screams fleshing out the sound. Nevertheless, what takes this song to another level, and what makes the album as a whole stand out, is where Moonreich subsequently go.

In my recent review of Wallowing’s Earth Reaper, I opened it by mentioning how the most noteworthy moments on extreme metal records are often those in which a band shies away from extremity for a touch of melody or levity. A fortnight later, Amer is a prime example of this. The bulldozing first half of “Of Swine And Ecstasy” is relentless, but around the halfway mark, it lets the foot off the throttle and seamlessly shifts into a clean, psychedelic bridge passage that comes out of nowhere, yet sounds right at home. After another burst of intensity, Moonreich round out the song with a climax that incorporates aspects of shimmering blackgaze and funky rock. What starts off as a pulverizing attack of a song ultimately transforms into an eclectic post-black venture.

I would hesitate to straight-up call Moonreich a post-black or a meloblack band; the core of each song is aggressive, imposing black metal, full of buzzing tremolos, punishing blasts, and a dark atmosphere not too far from a band such as fellow Frenchmen Regarde Les Hommes Tomber. Nevertheless, pretty much every track serves up some kind of unexpected detour that invariably takes the song to another level. In the case of the title track, the song is for most of its runtime relentlessly aggressive, yet Moonreich slip in occasional shimmering tremolos, meaning that when they pull back and reinterpret their approach for a slower, pounding ending in which those tremolos are pushed further towards the centre of the mix, the transition makes complete sense.

Later on, “Where We Sink”, the album’s shortest song, cuts to the chase sooner and revels in melancholic melody, but mixes up the formula further by slipping some emotive clean vocals in as well, as Moonreich lean towards depressive black and post-hardcore. This same melancholic emotion is reprised in the closing stages of the otherwise aggressive “Astral Jaws”, but is given a more central role in the album’s closing and longest song, “The Cave Of Superstition”. This is a song in which I get at different times touches of Regarde Les Hommes Tomber and Wayfarer, and one that flows fluidly between passages of all-out extremity, those with melody woven into otherwise intense instrumentation, and those that stand back and allow cleaner tones to take a more central role. It’s a song that should have cross-genre appeal for enjoyers of the full array of different black(ened) styles, and makes for a fantastic conclusion to the record.

Perhaps I wouldn’t be as keen on Moonreich if I went back to their earlier material; quite a lot of what makes Amer so great is derived from styles that have only emerged gradually across the past decade, and a quick glance at a couple of songs from their first couple of records indicates to me that the group have evolved in line with such trends from more humble and straightforward origins. It’s an evolution that has worked wonders, though, as this is an excellent modern black metal release.