Nightfly I’m certainly no expert on the black metal genre and until the last couple years had a fixed idea, with a few exceptions like Enslaved and Immortal for example, that it was all thin production, tremolo picked guitars and rasping vocals with unrelenting blastbeats. Since then however I’ve opened up more and discovered that it offers much more variation and discovered some real gems from the likes Hail Spirit Noir and Oranssi Pazuzu amongst others.

I recently came across Forteresse, a French Canadian black metal band and their new album Themes Pour la Rebellion. If I didn’t now know better and if ever a band were to reinforce my earlier pre-conceptions of the genre then this could be it I guess. Less lo-fi than the earlier wave of black metal but fitting in all other respects. However whilst there’s nothing groundbreaking here Forteresse have won me over with some damn catchy melodies. It is a little one-dimensional with an unrelenting wall of sound and little change of pace, i.e. fast but nevertheless the band play well and come up with some strong riffs amongst the general melee. There’s no doubt this is helped by a production that is sympathetic to the earlier days of BM but brought up to date carrying a lot more clout and bottom end.

If you’ve had your fill of no frills black metal then there’s probably not a lot for you here but if not then this has much to offer and I can see myself returning to it fairly often over the coming months and intrigued enough to check out their back catalogue.