{"id":722365,"date":"2026-08-01T07:15:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T07:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722365\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T07:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T07:15:21","slug":"viande-monument-aux-morts-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722365\/","title":{"rendered":"Viande – Monument aux morts Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As I snatch their sophomore, Monument aux morts from the jaws of the dormant Shark, the irony of reviewing an act called Viande as a vegan is not lost on me. Fortunately, the meat they\u2019re serving is of the metaphorical kind\u2014brutal, nasty, chewy. After L\u2019Abime d\u00e9vore les \u00e2mes<\/a> saw all souls eaten, a Monument to the dead comes in comiseration castigation for the misstep into that abyss. At first blush, Monument aux morts seems to follow also in its predecessor\u2019s grimy doom-death-black stylistic tracks; but there\u2019s more to the descent this time. Coming four years since Viande first crawled out of the earth, can it strike the death blow its predecessor narrowly missed?<\/p>\n

Monument aux morts changes little about Viande\u2019s culinary style, continuing to draw heavily from the Incantation school of death metal, though now with more prominent disorienting flourishes that vividly recall Thantifaxath (\u201cSacrifice Ardent,\u201d \u201cL\u2019homme Brasier\u201d). The atmospheric side leans closer to that of Praise the Plague\u2014grand and menacing\u2014on the slower end (\u201cLinceul Immense,\u201d \u201cUne cage d\u2019os\u201d), and Ultha on the faster\u2014vocals excepted\u2014(\u201cGermes de mort\u201d). Together, these create a darker and more dissonant offering which in turn makes the omnipresent echo and whines of feedback that bleed tracks together feel even more smothering. Dense and heavy at fast as well as moderated tempos, Monument aux morts succeeds in creating a persistent aura of horror even as it wavers before the threshold of total envelopment.<\/p>\n

\ufeffMonument aux morts by VIANDE<\/a><\/p>\n

Viande\u2019s ability to unsettle has improved, thanks to deeper, more nuanced compositions. Guitars snake ominously and twist themselves into ever more gut-wrenching patterns (\u201cSacrifice ardent,\u201d \u201cGermes de mort,\u201d \u201cL\u2019homme brasier\u201d), whilst tremolos also slip more often into an eerie shiver (\u201cLinceul immense\u201d). The pervasive atmosphere uses reverb intelligently, without detracting from each song\u2019s momentum, and often pulls in the horrifying sounds of screams (\u201cSacrifice ardent\u201d) and strange synthetic whines (\u201cL\u2019esprit cachot\u201d). Malevolent minor melody bleeds in as a short-lived, swaying foothold in the mire (\u201cUne cage d\u2019os\u201d) of churning scales or feedback. Amidst the chaos, oddly compelling grooves take hold (\u201cLinceul Immense,\u201d \u201cCercueil de vase\u201d). The culmination of these aspects is a consistently frightening texture, which peaks when it all combines to form thrilling, even darkly beautiful, shapes that step outside of a clear (sub-)genre boundary. At these times, Monument aux morts ceases to be merely a punishing, dirt-choked slab of blackened death-doom,, but a consuming miasma of discordant scales and impossible drums (\u201cSacrifice ardent,\u201d \u201cL\u2019homme brasier\u201d), or a rippling, oddly mesmerising chasm driven deeper through layers of rhythm and almost-melody (\u201cMonolithe de chagrin,\u201d \u201cL\u2019esprit cachot\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"\"And yet, Monument aux morts fails to maintain the vice grip on the listener it periodically holds. This is partly down to production that\u2019s fittingly crushing and filth-encrusted for the album\u2019s brutal death leanings, but thereby flattens the more prominent atmospheric side. Aside from above-noted highlights, and the odd sharp turns into the unusual, the majority of Monument aux morts\u2019 eight movements progress along the same lines. The shared components\u2014lurching from resonant tremolos into gallops, retreats to minimalistic whining and half-present drums, recurrent sludgy stomping\u2014are effective in themselves. The issue comes with their repetition across a runtime that approaches an hour, where overlapping song transitions cause things to blur still further into an indistinct mass.<\/p>\n

Viande are getting closer to the masterwork of horror they suggest they\u2019re capable of. Despite being longer, Monument aux morts holds a more commanding presence than their debut and the germs of dark brilliance have grown to larger aspects that are truly gripping when they take over. All that remains is for Viande to stitch them together and give them the richer master their depths deserve.<\/p>\n

Rating: Good
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: July 31st, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As I snatch their sophomore, Monument aux morts from the jaws of the dormant Shark, the irony of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[47816,6446,238727,28214,9986,238728,6448,96,69268,74134,223241,238729,128,238730,263,129,238731,19450,56,238732,54,55,238733],"class_list":["post-722365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-47816","tag-3-0","tag-atmospheric-death-metal","tag-black-metal","tag-death-metal","tag-doom-death-metal","tag-doom-metal","tag-entertainment","tag-french-metal","tag-incantation","tag-jul26","tag-monument-aux-morts","tag-music","tag-praise-the-plague","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-thantifaxath","tag-transcending-obscurity-records","tag-uk","tag-ultha","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-viande"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}