Review by Michael on February 14, 2022.

So here we go with the second EP Nos Prières by French one-man project Prieuré. Again a very appealing artwork invites the listener to a trip into the abysses of French black metal and again you won't be disappointed. No keyboard or acoustic intro is needed, the hateful maelstrom of blood (or is it a dry Bordeaux?) pulls you down and spits you out after almost 22 minutes of disturbing, fast-witching black metal.

It is not quite dissonant music that mastermind Sans-Visage presents though there are some parts that remind me of the well-known French band with the Greek letter in its name but all in all it is quite a unique release. The vocal on Nos Prières is – as it already was on La Foi Des Bourreaux- very distorted and aggressive and the guitars and drums also sometimes go into some punk direction again. What I really like on this EP is the fact that you cannot find some black metal tunes only but also some acoustic guitar parts that give you some space to relax. I guess if there would be just these black metal songs, it would be a very exhausting trip and very hard to follow until the end. The production is quite okay for an independent release; maybe the instruments are a little bit overdriven so that there is some white noise in it but it may be intentional, too. Of course, I want to go into detail for some of the five tracks: The second track 'Sacrifiés' is a really catchy one because of its simple structures and what I really like in it are the female vocals that somewhat create a slight ghastly atmosphere. 'Nos Prièrs', the opener, however is a really fast and uncompromising black metal track with some very interesting breaks that will convince every old school black metal fan. 'Amérique' starts as a very calm acoustic guitar driven track that creates nevertheless a quite uncomfortable atmosphere. And after about 1:30 minutes this quite ugly caterpillar turns into a skull hawk moth, to be metaphorical.

I would state that Prieuré went the next logical step with this album. Sans-Visage did little bit more experimental stuff and quite an interesting approach of songwriting. May the first full-length come soon!

Rating: 8 out of 10 Mouton-Cadet