Band:	Fange
Album:	Purulences
Style:	Hardcore, Industrial metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	March 14, 2025
A review by:	RaduP

01. Cavalier Seul
02. Sans Conviction
03. Mortes Promesses
04. Grand-Guignol
05. Juste Cruel
06. Langues Fourchues
07. Aux Abois

Reviewing a new Fange album now boils down to finding the balance between showing my frustration at the lack of expected progression, and describing my lasting and thorough enjoyment of their sound nonetheless.

Fange is a band I've been covering since 2019, back when they only had a single full length and a couple of EPs in their back catalogue to go off. Punir and its follow-up, Pudeur, created a trajectory that still informs how I relate to Fange's material, by first creating the expectation of progression. Because each of those albums built upon the sound of its predecessors but still introduced new elements, leading to MSA nominations (and considerations for nominations) in three different categories, I have come to plaster "chameleonic nature" on the band. Pantocrator, while not necessarily expanding into a different genre (sans for some post-metal explorations), instead played around with the structure by dividing the album in two long tracks. That was the last I was really surprised by what a Fange did.

Privation, Perdition, and now Purulences instead feel pretty interchangeable. They still have things that are unique to them, mostly in terms of nuances, but for a band I've once described as "chameleonic", giving me the impression that I've heard them do this already can be just as bad as hearing them go in a direction I don't like. It's very unfair, because I know I feel this because I've placed their early progression on a pedestal and now I'm holding them against that standard, even though the sound they have now is recognizably theirs and they're absolutely amazing at it, but also because new Fange albums have followed in a quick succession, with 2022 being the only year since Punir's 2019 not to have a new Fange record. More material of similar sound makes for diminishing returns for this reviewer, so much so that I had to use the "starting everything with 'P' " gimmick for my review of their latest. As meta as it would be for me to keep doing that, I'd rather not.

But the reason why I decided to tackle this album for a review is that, despite my already explained issues, the album is fucking killer, and it would be a disservice for the band not to have it talked about. And I know it might be weird for people for whom Purulences is their first contact with Fange (welcome, hope you enjoy it here) to find a review of their new album boiling down to me putting expectations on how the band should progress when they have no such expectations. Instead, Purulences is a superbly engaging industrial sludge album, the kind of album that is a pleasure to listen to with headphones because of how well it can fill the space with its colossal sound, with some of the best production you'd find on this side of Godflesh. As far as nuances go, I find less influences from post-punk and darkwave compared to its predecessors, and more moments where the sludge metal side has a lot of oomph behind it, with the one explosive moment in the latter side of opener "Cavalier Seul" being a tone setter for the record's heaviness. What makes this album enjoyable for me, even with my own expectations in mind, is that it still feels purposeful in its songwriting, and my "heard it before" feeling never leans towards "this feels like autopilot". I hope it never does with them.

Fange have quite definitely settled on a sound they're comfortable doing and that they're good at doing. Good news for me as a listener because it's a sound I'm very into. Bad news for me as a reviewer because I'd be compelled to review it even though I'll struggle to find new ways to talk about it. I'd love it if they could pull the rug from under my feet again, or if they could at least space out their release schedule though, but I'm still along for the ride either way.