|
France has not yet shown plenty of quantity in the past years of Metal music. On second thought, limited quantity has crossed the country’s borders. The unique sound of the French language surely is a point of contradiction for the average ’want English’ Metal fan, even if bands like SORTILEGE, SATAN JOKERS, KILLERS, ADX or BLASPHEME did make that something in the 80s. SIGIS delivers its first full length CD and I wonder if "Le Grand Retour De Nibiru" will stand the test of time. The reason for this? Even if the songwriting is clever enough and 100% ’Metal’, the band does somehow get lost in trying to combine ’classic’ Metal with the Speed/Thrash extends. In mid-tempo parts you’ll hear enough melodies (the guitars work is good enough, but not that ’pro’) while speeding things up brings in an ’evil’ atmosphere (the ’vice’ side of European Thrash, I’d say). Matthieu’s vocals are convincing, bearing in mind he sings in French. Thinking again, they can as well be convincing to my ’80s’ ears, while I doubt if today’s Metal fan will tolerate such an alien accent. Still, they’re applicable to the music’s directives. I overlap the ’self-financed’ average production, just because it’s self-financed. Trying to imagine how the songlist would sound in a normal mix, I’d declare SIGIS would do much better. Parts from (old) METALLICA, MEGADETH (guitars wise), ICED EARTH, hostile IRON MAIDEN and (enough of) the not-fast piece of the Central Europe Thrash Metal style is the summary I could come with. Those willing to hunt for some ’exotic’ (meaning, not sung in English) Heavy Metal releases can easily check SIGIS. They’re neat and hopeful. If they do not deteriorate their Heavy/Thrash balance and sign to a proper label for some ’recordings’ budget, I feel they’ll be offering some better 70%-Heavy-and-30%-Speed/Thrash releases in the future.
|
