Album Review: Fall Of Messiah – Senicarne

A big album for a big idea, Senicarne finds French post-metallers Fall Of Messiah really taking a bath in their shiny, enormous, cascadingly heavy sound, while dealing with the history of humans’ attachment to nature, reality and one another. It’s a mood born of an observation that everything is futile, everything is arguable, nobody truly believes in anything anymore, other than their need for distraction and novelty. With a title that, backwards, translates as ‘rooted’ in French, and forward works as ‘old flesh’ in Latin, Fall Of Messiah clearly aren’t afraid of working their brains. But they’re not pseuds, they just actually dare to go deep.

Musically, the vessel for their journey is built of similar materials used by Alcest, Envy, Svalbard and Deafheaven. It sparkles and floats, taking time to get where it’s going, but with every note of every rising and falling, whispering and crescendoing part put just so with care and thought. It does lack a bit in the way of songs you actually remember, rather than just very-well observed examples of the form, but on La République du Vide and the post-hardcore-tanged Young Pines, they do show that they’re very skilled with this stuff. And when you do really sink your teeth in, you realise how much there really is going on beneath the surface.

When they shift up a gear and explode, such as when a burst of black metal arrives during closer and candidate for Title Of The Year, The Loneliest Whale In The World, there’s an injection of catharsis that energises what’s around it. It all makes Senicarne a record that post-metal aficionados will find much to delight over. And when it comes to pondering such a huge theme as Fall Of Messiah have here, you can’t fault the sheer scale of the music they’ve put it to.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans Of: Alcest, Envy, Svalbard

Senicarne is released on July 31 via Holy Roar.