Review by Alain on April 22, 2020.

Ysengrin is a French band founded in Normandy back in 2005. Currently, the band consists of three musicians, being Guido Saint Roch the only founding member of this band. Ysengrin began as a solo project, but Guido has traditionally been accompanied by other two musicians in order to complete the line-up. The current bass player, known as Alrinack and Inkantator Kour, who shares the duties of playing the keys, performing the vocals and other stuff with Guido, are involved in many other underground projects. So, in practice Ysengrin continues to be Guido's personal project.

Ysengrin's sound is usually defined as “hermetic dark metal” and it can hardly be restricted to only one subgenre. The band's peculiar and primitive style flows between the boundaries of doom, death and black metal. Conceptually, the music is strongly influenced by esoteric and occult themes, which play a major role in the forge of Ysengrin's very personal creations. The ambience is dark and suffocating and the production has been traditionally raw, yet very atmospheric. Ysengrin's core sound is clearly represented in the album Réincrudation. This is in fact not a new work, but a compilation of the remastered old demos Archivum MMV-MMX and Alchimëte. Réincrudation portraits the very personal sound of Ysengrin in its purest form. The compositions have a primarily slow pace, very doomish and atmospheric. The first half of the album contain tracks like 'Abstinence', which have a pretty repetitive pace with very simple drums and riffs with a quite raw and crushing tone. The variety only comes in form of interludes, which strengthen the mysterious atmosphere of the whole work. Anyway, the most interesting tracks come at the last part of this compilation. A remarkable example would be 'Antéros', which has more diverse structures. Vocally speaking, the band combines the typically death metal growling vocals with a clean one. The growls are quite primary and remind me the most traditional and underground death metal scene. On the other hand, the clean ones have a distinctive occultist touch, as they sound like a sorcerer invoking a demon. The peak of Réincrudation is undoubtedly the longest and most elaborated track entitled 'Mystéres De L'Artifex'. The production in this track seems to be better balanced and cleaner, yet still rasping. It combines the aforementioned harsh and clean vocals with better structured guitars riffs. The track flows more naturally and it has a more coherent structure, less weird, which could be worse for some people, but it is much better in my opinion. It also contains some interesting keys in the background and even some bells who add a mysterious touch. Experimentation and weirdness don't disappear as Ysengrin still introduces some dissonant guitars riffs which reinforce this gloomy and occult ambience.

Ysengrin's music is in fact not an easy one to digest. Though I must admit that the 65 minutes that this work lasts have been a hard tack for me, there are still some good points to highlight, which save the album for me. When the tracks are better composed and have a more varied touch Ysengrin's occult metal can have some interesting details and remarkable sections as it happens in songs like 'Mystéres De L'artifex', for example. This is obviously a demo compilation, a fact which makes understandable that the band had yet some aspects to polish. Last tracks, as I have mentioned, mark the correct path for the band so it would be interesting to see what Ysengrin can offer in future.

Rating: 

Review by Carl on January 9, 2021.

At the time of writing (March 2020), I'm in isolation in my house because of the COVID-19 pandemic. No joke. To keep myself busy, I'm filling my days with writing reviews and playing albums from my collection that I haven't heard in quite a while. It was while scanning the shelves for what to put on next that I noticed this Morbosidad cd titled Corona De Epidemia. How delightfully appropriate.

These past years have seen members of Oath of Cruelty, P.L.F., Obeisance and Blaspherian (among many others) passing through the ranks but I haven't got the idea that had much of an impact on the sound. Morbosidad still churn out fast and barbaric black/death metal that doesn't dabble in melody or technicality a whole lot and right so. This stuff is not for the weak of heart and must sound like the sonic equivalent of finding a pissed off feral racoon in your garbage can. Dangerous, filthy and sick. The band is charging ahead at high velocity most of the time, with only now and then stepping on the brakes. And in the middle of the ongoing sonic obliteration there's vocalist Thomas Stench, barking his profane hatred for all that is holy like a raging lunatic. The band charge ahead in the tradition of Black Witchery, Necroholocaust and Trench Warfare and they do it with gusto. Just like they've been doing for years.

It's everything you've come to expect from Morbosidad, savage metal with blasphemous lyrics played with huge amounts of violent determination. But the thing is that you can say that about any other of their releases and maybe that's the reason why this particular one doesn't spark me as much as their earlier work. This is by no means a bad album, it's got everything I wanna hear from this infernal horde but perhaps I just got used to the intensity of their attack.

I guess it's one of those albums to put on when you've got nothing special to do and have gotten tired of your usual listening habits. Like when you're in quarantine and aren't allowed to leave the house, for instance.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Review by Carl on January 9, 2021.

At the time of writing (March 2020), I'm in isolation in my house because of the COVID-19 pandemic. No joke. To keep myself busy, I'm filling my days with writing reviews and playing albums from my collection that I haven't heard in quite a while. It was while scanning the shelves for what to put on next that I noticed this Morbosidad cd titled Corona De Epidemia. How delightfully appropriate.

These past years have seen members of Oath of Cruelty, P.L.F., Obeisance and Blaspherian (among many others) passing through the ranks but I haven't got the idea that had much of an impact on the sound. Morbosidad still churn out fast and barbaric black/death metal that doesn't dabble in melody or technicality a whole lot and right so. This stuff is not for the weak of heart and must sound like the sonic equivalent of finding a pissed off feral racoon in your garbage can. Dangerous, filthy and sick. The band is charging ahead at high velocity most of the time, with only now and then stepping on the brakes. And in the middle of the ongoing sonic obliteration there's vocalist Thomas Stench, barking his profane hatred for all that is holy like a raging lunatic. The band charge ahead in the tradition of Black Witchery, Necroholocaust and Trench Warfare and they do it with gusto. Just like they've been doing for years.

It's everything you've come to expect from Morbosidad, savage metal with blasphemous lyrics played with huge amounts of violent determination. But the thing is that you can say that about any other of their releases and maybe that's the reason why this particular one doesn't spark me as much as their earlier work. This is by no means a bad album, it's got everything I wanna hear from this infernal horde but perhaps I just got used to the intensity of their attack.

I guess it's one of those albums to put on when you've got nothing special to do and have gotten tired of your usual listening habits. Like when you're in quarantine and aren't allowed to leave the house, for instance.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Review by Carl on January 9, 2021.

At the time of writing (March 2020), I'm in isolation in my house because of the COVID-19 pandemic. No joke. To keep myself busy, I'm filling my days with writing reviews and playing albums from my collection that I haven't heard in quite a while. It was while scanning the shelves for what to put on next that I noticed this Morbosidad cd titled Corona De Epidemia. How delightfully appropriate.

These past years have seen members of Oath of Cruelty, P.L.F., Obeisance and Blaspherian (among many others) passing through the ranks but I haven't got the idea that had much of an impact on the sound. Morbosidad still churn out fast and barbaric black/death metal that doesn't dabble in melody or technicality a whole lot and right so. This stuff is not for the weak of heart and must sound like the sonic equivalent of finding a pissed off feral racoon in your garbage can. Dangerous, filthy and sick. The band is charging ahead at high velocity most of the time, with only now and then stepping on the brakes. And in the middle of the ongoing sonic obliteration there's vocalist Thomas Stench, barking his profane hatred for all that is holy like a raging lunatic. The band charge ahead in the tradition of Black Witchery, Necroholocaust and Trench Warfare and they do it with gusto. Just like they've been doing for years.

It's everything you've come to expect from Morbosidad, savage metal with blasphemous lyrics played with huge amounts of violent determination. But the thing is that you can say that about any other of their releases and maybe that's the reason why this particular one doesn't spark me as much as their earlier work. This is by no means a bad album, it's got everything I wanna hear from this infernal horde but perhaps I just got used to the intensity of their attack.

I guess it's one of those albums to put on when you've got nothing special to do and have gotten tired of your usual listening habits. Like when you're in quarantine and aren't allowed to leave the house, for instance.

Rating: 7 out of 10