Pour Redevenir Poussière

Two years after “Aux Portes de la Mort” the French Chadenn come back in 2012 with a new full length album called “Pour Redevenir Poussière”. The album contains eight new compositions and one from the previous album with a different mix and it lasts for about fifty minutes. The only change in the band’s formation is in guitar but as it seems, it is a quite important as we can see new elements in their music, that is that the simple, minimalistic riffs are completely absent and the orientation that they have in this album is going to the pure Scandinavian Black Metal.

Surely since the previous album, there is improvement concerning the riffing, as also in the tracks’ structure which has become quite more interesting. The characteristic high pitched, long riffs that we had met in the previous album are still here and unfortunately they still lack of inspiration. However the positive thing is that there are rhythmic, full of energy Thrash/Black riff, slow, depressive passages with disharmonic melodies and some very interesting, epic riffs which save the compositions. The riffs are clean, mainly fast and they have lost that harsh and raw style that the riffs of the previous album had.

The guitars, although that they have tried a lot to deliver the riffs as they have to, and in a big part of the album they have achieved that, in some parts an uncertainty and a diffidence in their performance that it is understandable by the listener. The drums are well played, with interesting lines, variety in their style of playing and the power that the guitars don’t have. As much as i tried i didn’t manage to listen not even to one note of the bass. The vocals still are in the good level that was also in the previous album concerning the expression and the energy that they put out, they are harsh, having lost the raw character that they had. The production is bassy and clean, it puts out a heavy sound, quite massive that it fits to the style of the compositions. About the mix, the guitars play the first role and they are louder than the rest of the instruments but without that becoming annoying during the listen, while the mistake is the absence of the bass. The lyrics are written in French and my poor French didn’t help me to understand what they are about.

It is very positive to see a band from one release to the other, to work, to try, to mature, to improve. For sure Chadenn have worked a lot and have moved some steps forward and that must be mentioned but they haven’t reached the level that they should have yet. There are mistakes, the boring, without inspiration riffs are still here and they ruin everything good that they have corrected. The album isn’t bad, it has its good and its bad parts, so I think it is not a waste of time to listened to it.