A thick, green mist cloaks the gray pavement between two huge, windowless buildings. The air is filled with a monotonous drone of pounding machinery. Pipelines and electric wires connect both industrial buildings, high above the small square. At the top of one of these buildings, Death overlooks its hunting domain. As far as the eye can see, industry infests the country. Vegetation, if any, was eaten away long ago, by raw oil, biting chemicals and hazardous fumes. Only a blackened kind of poison ivy managed to survive until now. In this man made landscape, a small, wounded deer with large, wetted eyes, seeks her way through the green vapors. Gnawing at some ivy, the animal nervously looks around. Then, frightened by a massive, undefined, metallic bang, she turns and runs in blind terror. Fleeing to nowhere in particular, she runs after several minutes into a low, barbed fence. Behind it is the relative safety of a forested countryside. She might just manage it, with one mighty jump! Without stopping, she jumps. Slipping on the wet cobblestones, she crashes head first into the fence. Electricity fries her body and stops her heart immediately.

Her lifeless body falls to the ground, while her flesh is ripped by rusty barbed wire. Grinning, Death gets down to collect its victim.

Arkhon Infaustus, together with Deathspell Omega, SVEST, Antaeus, Vorkreist and many others, are part of a superior innovative French black and black-death metal force, which came into being in the late nineties. This album is a very diverse mixture of black and death metal, with variation both in pace and in many-layered song structures. Harsh, fast and militaristic parts are followed up by slow paced, atmospheric ones. The music creates a mood of melancholy and depression. Guitars are raw like machine engines and tearing like a barbed whip. Strange guitar sounds make the music mysterious and original. Drums are tight, double base drums carry the metallic blasphemy to furious paces. Vocally, grunts and screams exchange each other, fitting flawless into the songs. The album lacks keyboards.

For gloom and depression, listen to this magnificent fourth album of Arkhon Infaustus now and often.