Wormfood
France

It might be that in my so far brief career as a listener, I haven't come across many records that could be cataloged as avant-garde. However, the incredible debut of this French quartet (Emmanuel El Worm: Vocals, Guitar-Efflam: Drums-Romain Yacono: Bass-Fred Patte Brasseur: Guitar) from Rouen truly impressed me. The album in question is from 2005, and very few noticed it; this doesn't surprise me at all. This is one of those typical albums that, for various reasons I will list, cannot appeal to everyone. These four eccentrics, starting from a base of heavy metal, enrich their sound with folk breaks sometimes bordering on jazz, venomous accelerations that contrast with slowdowns in full doom style, sinister arpeggios, classical music inserts (symphonic instruments are widely used), unpredictable electronic intros, spoken parts in French, and gothic atmospheres.
Put like this, it's hard to believe, and certainly, we are not facing the band that will change the fate of music (something similar to what Wormfood proposed was done by Arcturus, Samael, or Therion well before). For sure, listening to this "France" one finds themselves literally baffled by compositions incredibly outside the norm. Try to believe songs like "Miroir de chair", which is pure doom/death (who said My Dying Bride?) torn apart by the insertion of truly unsettling strings and keyboards; or "TEGBM" which alternates aggressive thrash riffs with breathtaking classical music openings. Listening to "Love at last", you have the impression of dealing with a slightly angrier Type O Negative, with female vocal choirs that backdrop Emmanuel's vocal evolutions, maneuvering between whispers, desperate clean vocals, and malign screaming; or the beautiful "Bum Fight" which starts with doomsday riffs and then unfolds between thrash/death attacks driven by the singer's grating growl, slowdowns with terrifying filtered voices, and an ending with truly oppressive atmospheres.
It is useless to try to describe the other songs "France" is a work that must be listened to in its entirety; I do not doubt that even ears more trained to these kinds of sounds might remain bewildered at a first listen. The value and beauty of this record emerge only after several listens. "France" has the difficult goal of trying to describe the thousand faces (especially the more uncomfortable ones) of a society as complex as the French one. For this reason, a special mention deserves the lyrics that are anything but trivial: challenging themes like diversity, social degradation, pedophilia, or poverty are treated with a style that mixes a sense of the macabre, grotesque, and a pinch of irony without ever falling into cheap rhetoric.

More than good is the performance of all the musicians involved; especially the frontman Emmanuel, who makes extensive use of his wide vocal range. The production is entrusted to Axel Wursthorn (leader of Carnival in Coal, another absolutely crazy band) and is more than good; only in sporadic moments, the sounds are slightly confused and oppressive. Power, emotion, compositional flair, excellent musicians, temperament... what else do you want? Chapeau!