I feel I am going to have a good handle on some of the darker works in various languages. From what I can surmise, Mort aux Gueux means “Death to the Beggers (?)” and the album title starts out with “Music of the Devil” and then gets really patchy from there. It could have something to do with misery or mother Earth. Whether or not I would actually do well in France or the French Canadian territories is one thing, the tone and theme of Mort aux Gueux is quite another.

I hesitated to put the raw tag on this full length despite the fact the production leaning in that direction. In the absence of noise and production hiss lies a relatively clear production filled with simplistic and echoing instrumentation which hangs strange with weirdness. Songs like “L’Homme, Fleuve souillé” showcase almost shoegaze tendencies with guitar washes over vocal drones with French murmuring. the music for Mort aux Gueux lies at the intersection of catharsis, nihilism, and cryptic ritual with a record that is as strange as it is effective.

Beuverie, Musique du Diable et Misère Crasse is for anyone with an interest in black metal that has been left out in the cold for a number of days. Frostbitten and ornery, this is music that is raw in spirit but opted for a more direct path to listeners. I will perhaps never be fluent in French but music like this is expanding my vocabulary if nothing else that with the grim words.