The evolution of one’s sound is something that tends to be viewed in the scope of several years. Whether we’re considering how a genre itself has morphed into something different overtime or a band has shifted their sound to become something far different than from when they started out, such changes are oftentimes considered in terms of multiple years if not decades in some cases. On occasion, we’re given an act that manages to really challenge itself and become far more than a one-dimensional creation that is not content to sit in the exact same sonic territory for long. We’re lucky enough to see the rise of many such acts throughout the dense underground, and Etoile Filante has proven with its second album that it is pining to be just such a marvel.
While offering up a base of cosmic black metal with their debut album from four years ago, you could pick any minute within their second opus, “Mare Tranquillitatis”, and quickly come to realize that Etoile Filante was not going to be satisfied by treading that very same ground. Still adhering to many of the same properties that set the act apart from much of their contemporaries, it is with every given facet of these six tracks that we can see how far the French act has already come. Tremendously hypnotic and the definition of what it means to go on a journey of black metal that can be likened to few others, what’s been wrought with “Mare Tranquillitatis” demands to be regarded as a work that well and truly puts Etoile Filante on a level that’s above much of what the modern cosmic black metal scene is capable of with the greater atmospheric reaches not quite able to compare either. Etoile Filante pulls off a wondrously expansive sound that is so immensely adept at bringing forth pensive melodies where the mind is lured deeper into the space where Etoile Filante holds dominion and where its fierce side of black metal takes immediate hold to deliver a punch that is complimented and contrasted perfectly by its atmospheres, rhythms, and awe-inspiring splendor.
A voyage the likes of which black metal gets in such a tremendous form, Etoile Filante is already capitalizing wondrously on the potential and promise that were laid forth in that fateful debut album. Every facet of their sound feels sharper and all the more engaging in the most exquisite detail to ensure that “Mare Tranquillitatis” becomes an odyssey the likes of which the modern black metal fan needs to become familiar with.
LISTEN to “Mare Tranquillitatis” on Bandcamp here.
LIKE Etoile Filante on Facebook here.
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