Review Summary: Smells like camembert cheese.
Since Peste Noire’s latest release, the infamous
Split album, the audience was doubtful if Famine will ever release decent quality material ever again. And from this aspect, it was interesting to witness that
Le retour des pastoureaux actually turned out pretty good.
Le retour des pastoureaux is quite a wild ride, but that is more or less the default setting for a Peste Noire release. The album fuses pretty much everything together with what was presented in the previous works, in a quite neo-renaissance manner. Melancholic folk, weird post-punk and momentary black metal sections are on the menu again - something like a less black metal-oriented version of
L'Ordure Ă* l'Ă©tat Pur. By reducing the amount of one component (in this case: black metal), far more space was left for experimentation. This meant the opportunity for blending post-rocky, thrash metalish elements in the songs like “Chiendent” and “Haut les schlass”, or even
shoegazey riffing in “Les jolies cannes”. The latter song was especially interesting, as Famine perfectly imitated Alcest’s signature sound for a short time - the reverby riffs, and the clean vocals almost misled me, making me think that was a sample. Mockery or not, it was a noteworthy musical chameleon moment. On the instrumental front, there is no reason to complain: the album sounds good and it is musically interesting. But there is a really ugly thing: the vocals. Out of place, repetitive and they bear literally zero entertainment factor. This impression was a bit dampened by a bigger amount of gang vocals and the involvement of numerous and mysterious guest musicians, but it cannot be saved entirely.
Le retour des pastoureaux is easily among the most interesting Peste Noire albums by the diversity within, and Famine proved he’s still able to come up with great melodies. I can honestly say I can't understand shit, but I dig the riffs and the “weirdness” of this release.
