Hailing from Québec, Gris delivers powerful, atmospheric and truly emotional black metal that constructs its songs on feeling rather than catchy riffs or award-winning melodies. “Il Était Une Forêt” is a true masterpiece conveying, both lyrically and musically, feelings of isolation, agony and despair so brilliantly that it completely sucks me into a melancholic state of mind and forces me to stop any other activity as if I was in a trance. Needless to say that I have been eagerly waiting to see what their next endeavor would offer.

Enter “À l’Âme Enflammée, l’Äme Constellée…”. Five years in the making, the album showcases a more progressive style of writing whilst integrating more classical and acoustic parts that were exhibited in their previous endeavor. Exploring even more original soundscapes, Neptune and Icare juxtapose violin, cello, piano, acoustic guitars and other stringed instruments, percussions, female operatic vocals, even adding noise elements giving each song a unique character. Something of note is that every single instrument is played and recorded by the multi-instrumentalist duo. The songs themselves sound much heavier, are much longer and are obviously more skillfully executed. Though the songwriting became more adroit and the riffs more researched, it does take away from the melancholic aspect and the album ultimately fails to reproduce the same emotional impact as its predecessor.What truly separates Gris from other depressive/suicidal or acoustic Black Metal outfits is the integration of classical and acoustic elements, original use of unordinary instruments and a haunting voice that is the true embodiment of agony and despair. 4/5 Dragons

 Gris Online – www.musique-grise.blogspot.ca

– By Eddy Levitsky of the Band Hollow