Sühnopfer
Offertoire

"but the most powerful black band in the world is 1349!"... Oh, come on..

Sühnopfer, a French one-man band active since 2001 and led by Denis Florian, aka Ardraos, the drummer of Peste Noire, and that says it all. The project of the good Denis debuted in 2011, after no less than 4 demos (for Bael!), with "Nos sombres chapelles", which was quite a record, no doubt about it. But years later Denis decided to properly rearm his creature Sühnopfer for the grand return... and on December 1, 2014, the apocalypse on earth was unleashed. Offertoire, the new work of the band after 3 years, is the most monolithic and atrocious black record I have ever heard in my life, and all it takes is hearing the start of "Introït - Saints mystères", the first song on the album, to immediately understand what I'm talking about: a short martial intro of a few seconds and you are immediately hit by a train loaded with blast beats, piercing vocals à la Luror, and above all intricate Swedish riffs that build up an underlying epicness that simply leaves you speechless! The offering is rich and provides everything, acoustic guitar arpeggios and quasi-Gregorian choruses (after all, he is a member of Peste Noire, right?), groove beats, thrash passages, and above all a technical drumming that defies belief, offering sporadic yet sudden changes of time and rhythm... and let's remember that this is still a black metal album. This album is practically an epic vision of the apocalypse: try listening with your eyes closed to the epic phrasing of "Sonnent les aurisses (Montmorillon)" or the sea of blood infused in "Chevalier Maudit" (which even features none other than Ludovic "Famine" from Peste Noire) and in your mind, you will be imprinted with horrific and catastrophic visions of hanged priests, collapsing burning churches, impaled heads, and winged demons feasting on the flesh of a thousand damned!! And I would say that's enough to make you want to get this album any way possible, it is absolutely worth it!!