#epectase

That shouldn’t work, at all. Confoundingly, it does. In another minute, “As He Runs Toward the Stars” is channeling the dual-guitar soloing of early-1980s Judas Priest at their most popular. Somehow, it still works. And the band keeps doing that. Epectase uses black metal as the basic compositional frame for the songs on Astres, but the band consistently wends its way into other genres of metal, effecting transitions that surprise and delight. The second half of “Entering the Domain of the Solar Sovereign” has a bluesy-rock vibe that initially evokes Black Sabbath. Fair enough. But as the guitar solo extends, Vague shoots for the stars and then touches down somewhere in the American South. You could be at a Black Oak Arkansas concert in the hot summer of 1972. It shouldn’t work. Once again, it does.

This may be the most exciting music released by a French metal band thus far this year (other folks will abase themselves to Deathspell Omega’s new record, but we don’t fuck with fascism at Dusted). Even for those of us who like our black metal thoroughly blackened and our doom metal doomy, the innovations you hear on Astres and the clear evidence of a band enjoying its exploration of metal’s varied aspects are entirely winning and energizing. That energy threatens to flag a bit during the long, prettily atmospheric middle section of “La Mer Pourpre”; but Vague uses the song’s second half to develop the record’s most deliberately traditional black metal riffing. New textures keep emerging in his tremolo lines, as the song builds toward a terrific climax. The revelation there is Ativus, who breaks into a stirring, clean-vocal performance. To the album’s very close, Epectase keep pulling rabbits out of hats. But it seldom feels like shtick. Ativus’s clean vocals are quite good, and they provide the needed complement to Vague’s rigorously simple, orthodox playing. Astres is a terrific record, reaching for the heavenly bodies that its title suggests. At their best, Epectase can get you there.