Band:	Sordide
Album:	Les Idées Blanches
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	June 2021

01. Je N'ai Nul Pays
02. Ruines Futures
03. L'atrabilaire
04. Ne Savoir Que Rester
05. Les Idées Blanches
06. Le Silence Ou La Vie
07. Vers Jamais

It's quite tough to be unique in genres with decades upon decades of history. Sometimes, keeping things mostly familiar but consistently threading at borders is a pretty satisfying compromise. This is why I just know this is a Sordide album.

I like a lot of French black metal bands, and even if quite a few of them have really unique and influential sounds (think Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord, Alcest), there is a bit of a running thread in most of them, something that makes them feel distinctly French. It is in Sordide too. It's quite hard to really place what it is, it's something that feels like it channels a specific type of vitriol and disdain with its music. It's a sort of fiery passion, regardless of what it's channeled into. And here you have Sordide whose members also play in some doom and sludge bands, and even those clearly display that as well. Obviously the French don't have a monopoly on passion, but at least here, you can clearly feel it.

Sordide have been switching up labels quite a bit. Starting out on Avantgarde Music, moving to Throatruiner, and now to Les Acteurs de l'Ombre, each of these have a slightly distinct feel to the material they usually release, from the forward thinking to the punky to the fiery. And there are few bands that can really hit a sound that is such a great fit for all of these. And it's not like Sordide have a really wild out-there blend of genres. I mentioned it in my review of their previous album, 2019's Hier Déjà Mort, that it was "effective in being a straightforward black metal album, a forward-thinking one, and a bone-shattering one as well. Rarely does one find a single black metal album that can play in so many leagues without sounding disjointed." That's applicable here as well.

But I'm not sure if it was just the label change or just a natural progression, but Les Idées Blanches plays around with the elements a bit differently. The punk elements are diminished, and I find a lot more moments that play around in slower doomier tempos. Their tight songwriting is, after all, their biggest upside, and the way they manage to twist things into a more technical structure in a way that adds to how punchy it is, while the way they play around with dissonance to enhance the dirty atmosphere seems pleasingly distinct from how a lot of dissonant bands, especially the DsO-influenced ones, do. There are more moments on Les Idées Blanches that felt a bit duller compared to Hier Déjà Mort, usually in the slower sections, but those are far outweighed by their creativity in most other sections.

So, there isn't anything on Les Idées Blanches that feels unfamiliar to the avid black metal listener. There's clear influences are borrowed tropes from all three waves of black metal. There's the specifically French sound to it. But there is so much in its songwriting that plays around with those tropes to create something that is not necessarily avant-garde, but still absolutely forward-thinking.