THE BEAST

Although split albums generally exist as two seperate EPs joined together on one format, sometimes essentially being nothing more than throwaway tracks by both bands involved, Ce qui fut, ce qui est, ce qui sera goes a different route and exists as a work breathing unity of aesthetic and focus in flow. Both Malepeste and Dysylumn are French black metal entities, both with unique and yet also unifying traits. Both bands formed in 2010 and each have an album to their respective names, and more importantly, both Malepeste and Dysylumn share a brotherhood of sorts which sees them performing ritualistic collaborations on the live front.

Now, within the totality of Ce qui fut, ce qui est, ce qui sera, the full sulfurous splendor of Malepeste and Dysylumn is on display. Brimming with light and shade - and darkness, and darker darkness - serpentine songwriting and vitriolic violence, iron-wrought muscularity and beyond-the-shade atmosphere, Ce qui fut, ce qui est, ce qui sera is an album of dualities, of contrasts skillfully harnessed under the banner of black metal. The overt characteristics of French black metal - the robustness of the orthodox/religious school, and the melancholy of its more lonerist school - are fully represented here, but recast in vivid new iterations.