SHUB-NIGGURATH

The band started in 1982 and captured the world of avant-prog's attention with its 1986 debut "Les Morts Vont Vie" which deftly blended the zeuhl rhythmic forces of Magma with the creepy darkened avant-prog chamber prog antics of Univers Zero's "Heresie" era. Infused with an equal dose of 20th century experimental classical elements in the vein of Stockhausen, Ligeti, Cage and Varèse, SHUB-NIGGURATH constructed a totally new world of musical freakery with in a magnitude hitherto unknown in the world of avant-prog with some of the darkest and most sophisticated the genre had to offer. After this debut the band would lose both vocalist Ann Stewart and guitarist Frank Fromy leaving keyboardist Jean-Luc Hervé to take on the secondary duty of guitars. Newbie drummer Michel Kervinio also jumped on board.

The band followed with an even stranger musical specimen than what debuted even though that sounds very difficult to fathom. The band's second album C'ETAIENT DE TRES GRANDE VENTS (There Were Of Three Big Winds) seems to refer to the formless nature of the Lovecraftian deity for which the band was named and likewise this sophomore album reflects a more abstract ethereal noisy trip into the world of avant-garde infused 20th century classical music rather than anything in the world of progressive rock. Despite this stripping down of the prog elements and the inclusion of the new vocalist Sylvette Claudet for only a sole track, the album while more enthralled with minimalism and slinking processions of ambient sounds rather than zeuhl inspired rhythmic drives still exhibits scant relations to its predecessor from time to time with a few zeuhl moments as well as outbursts of heavy dissonant avant-prog.

The seven tracks on board seem to accent the art of contrast with eerie atmospheres finding freeform guitar dissonance and bizarre drumming sequences that ratchet up the tension until they reach a climactic meltdown of heavily distorted discordant guitar turbulence along with raucous percussive explosiveness sounding like a mix of the death industrial world of SPK in cahoots with Karlheinz Stockhausen's pointillistic surreality along with the remaining touches of Univers Zero or Art Zoyd. From the very first track "Glaciations," SHUB-NIGGURATH delivers a labyrinthine procession of tones and timbres courtesy of guitar feedback and droning with subtle percussive accents that culminate in a cacophonous uproar reminding of John Zorn's most spazzed out moments only in the context of a 20th century classical ensemble run amok. "Océan" is the closest remnant of the band's debut with the bleating of bass trombone sounds and a more rhythmic groove reminiscent of the zeuhl tendencies of album #1.

As the album continues it just gets more free form and more abstruse with irregular drum beats accompanied by impressionist guitar and bass arrhythmia. While the creepy piano spectral contributions still find their way into the mix, they are sparse and more scattered throughout the album's run. This is a noisy affair with seemingly little to latch onto as the debut at least offered the lifeline of zeuhl logic to forge rhythmic processions and the familiarity of Univers Zero avant-prog comparisons. C'ETAIENT DE TRES GRANDE VENTS on the other hand removes all training wheels and forces the listener to either run in terror or grasp to find the elusive underpinning of it all buried deep beneath the scattered sounds of the electroacoustic dark ambient sound effects that bath themselves in the nebulous nature of musique concrète or the recondite structuralism of Stockhausen, Schoenberg or Xenakis.

Definitely a harder pill to swallow, C'ETAIENT DE TRES GRANDE VENTS was the perfect way to alienate fans of the debut by taking them into a bizarre modern classical realm that they probably preferred not to be dragged into. Many bands that found a respected debuts have suffered this same fate whether it be Italy's Dedalus or Picchio dal Pozzo's bizarre sophomore release however SHUB-NUGGURATH took things even further with a sonic jungle so thick and so impenetrable that only the most dedicated intrepid musical explorers could find their way through the labyrinthine chaotic processions that navigated the 45 minute run. Personally i can totally understand why many did not warm up to this one as it is ridiculously tense and purposefully complex with the seeming intent to alien as many listeners as is possible but the music is actually beautifully designed behind its mirage of cacophonous clutter and will appeal to those who seek out the noisy shenanigans of Nurse With Wound, Controlled Bleeding or early Zoviet France. Personally i find this sort of mind [%*!#] music exhilarating and can totally hop on board this bizarre ride into doomsday. Not for everyone but rewarding for those who love these jittery rides into musical oblivion. This one will only appeal to those who have the patience and persistence to detect subtle musical developments in the midst of minimalism and chaos.

This album though.... what's the point. I'm sure everyone who's reviewed it has had to pad out what they right in order to meet the minimum word count (as I've just done here) because there's absolutely nothing going on. It's as if each instrument is being played in a different room without being able to hear the other. It's like someone has thrown a drum kit down a huge flight of stairs, and then let any child who has done Grade 1 in music have free reign on their instrument of choice.

At best its a 70 minute tune-up. At worst its a pointless collection of noise. It's not Zeuhl, its not ambient, its not industrial. The tracks have even been made more boring by just numbering them, and the album cover is just blank.

Testament to what exactly?

Perhaps its just one big joke, seeing how much money they could make out of absolutely nothing.

Glaciations - 5 minutes of ambient dark sound before major drumming chaos and screeching strings before the bell tolls over a guitar tuning

Ocean - Lead by the trombone, dark and foreboding from the start, evoking imagery of a ghost ship floating in dark and still waters. Guitar slowly builds up, based on a single chord, with a sense that something dramatic is about to happen as it picks up pace and the trombone gets louder. Giant squid attack!! A battle ensues, signified by the drums and guitar crescendo. The ship is destroyed. Fade to black.

Promethee - Sylvette Claudet sings opera-style over dissonant percussive noise, consistently and deliberately ever so slightly out of tune to put you on edge.

D'un seul et même souffle - Not called 'The Seal and the Souffle'. Graveyard music. The Trombone from Hell. Again, ambient and evil.

La nef des fous - Just a bit of chaos

Contrincante - Sinister trombone and bass and irregular guitar plinking.

C'étaient de très grands vents - Starts off ambient and percussive for a couple of minutes before some nice drum rolls which sets a background for more dissonant and grating trombone and guitars

I'd pick out the first two tracks as good examples , but I could never say its anything other than 'fans only'

It is with great pleasure, and an irrepressible sense of dread, that I finally give my opinion on this album. From my short attempt at Gothic writing at the beginning of this review, you might have already guessed that this album won't be easy to approach for mere humans like us; after all, insanity is all we would gain from gazing upon Cthulhu. No, we must plunge into the darkest part of ourselves, and awaken a desire for somberness, and be one with the music of the Outer Goddess, and ourselves become a monster, incomprehensible in form, perhaps, or a gargoyle gazing upon humans with hunger, or a decomposing skeleton, eager for the living to join its side. Whatever monster your mind can come up with, picture it as yourself. Your clock will strike midnight, you may turn off your lights, and close your eyes, not even a candle must be lit. Then, and only then, will you be able to meet the Black Goat of the Woods.

This is what this band needs to be enjoyed, total darkness, and in exchange, you will be taken into their world, you have all the right to be afraid, to scream, but you must not lose your focus. Delivered with the contrast of an earth-shattering bass, and an ear-splitting guitar; the suffocating and languishing nature of a crushing harmonium, and a foreboding trombone; the eerie beauty of an unpredictable piano, and incantational voice; all supported by drums and percussion, pounding away to the tune of destruction, the music that will envelop you from the first second onward will be incomparable. The thought of listening to music that is comprehensible must be thrown out the window, attempting to understand the composition will only lead you down a path of endless questioning; indeed, you must even throw out any recollection you may have of any other music, for that time being, it will not be useful to you. Les Morts Vont Vite is not to be enjoyed as a group of songs, but as a group of realms, worlds that you will go, run, fall, and die into, one by one.

You may enjoy it, or you may not, but that does not matter to the Great Old One, you must listen to it to the end. Laying down in a bed like a corpse lays in a coffin, cradled by unending darkness, you must go through the six stages of this ritual to be allowed back into your own world. And, as an archaeologist opening an ancient haunted manuscript, and being haunted by thousands upon thousands of damned souls who awaited their freedom for centuries, you will begin your descent into the deepest pits of despair with the fantastic introduction, Incipit Tragaedia.

In this whole album, Incipit Tragaedia is the most comprehensible song, after all, it is the incipit of your story, and tragedy will only truly strike after this point. This song is merely a painful march towards the gates of hell, and slowly, as the song creeps towards its end, you abandon all hope. And as the singers lets out the last of her incantations, and as the menacing thunderous bass becomes quieter, you fall into Inferno. Cabine 67 is the beginning of the end, the dead pile up, they are punished for eternity, in an agony, O so monotonous. As the horror unfolds before you, the bass makes its reappearance in an absurdly low and devastating improvisation along the pummeling and repetitive drums. Panic is the master of this world, just as much as the unrelenting punishment delivered by the drums. Only when your Calvary seems over that you encounter the great spheres of light, the spheres that have always seen, known about you, and known everything since the beginning of time, Yog-Sothoth. Quickly, disaster strikes, thought you believe you had found a way out, once truth is revealed to you, restlessness and chaos smite you with the power that only the strongest phenomena of our universe could muster; a doubled tracked guitar solo that is close to ripping your eardrums and the ominous chanting of the enslaved followers brings you close to insanity. Amidst the chaos and destruction, you are saved by an ironclad horseman who takes you away from the All-Knowing God's accomplices. But misery shan't stop so early, as an endless nightmare would, your savior was but another monster. Now, you are Léonore, and he shall be your companion on your ballad through the land of the dead, and just as H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horrors had disappeared, Horace Vernet's painting came to life, your few minutes of rests are filled with the dread of a haunting harmonium, cut short by the rider's haphazard and rapid course through the scorched earth. La Ballade De Lénore brings out an incredibly dissonant and violent part of the music, that will only get more distorted and violent from this point onward. As the last of the demented singing stops, you are met with Delear Prius. As you sink further into insanity, tension and heaviness is felt in silence, the thunder grows more destructive, the voices that haunt your mind, even more aleatory. Madness catches up to you, as do the Gods, Helios renders you blind, and Harpies close in to torment you for the rest of eternity, as you have stopped falling, and reached the deepest pits of despair, as the walls of noise buzzes inside your ears, as the guitar rips your flesh, as the bass destroys your bones, as the singer chants your demise.

And so ends your journey through Les Morts Vont Vite. Now back in your own world, you can wake up from your nightmare, the ritual is over, you're no longer the horrific monster, chased by Gods and Mythical beasts. The Gothic and terrifying voyage presented by all of the great musicians present on this album can now be appreciated correctly. After letting yourself become a part of the music, you've experienced something that cannot be replicated. Though you may try the same with Univers Zéro, or Art Zoyd, or even Dün, none will ever come close to achieving the truly atmospheric and captivating qualities of this album. Les Morts Vont Vite is not simply a masterpiece from the chamber-rock era of French Zeuhl, it is, and will remain the masterpiece of the chamber-rock era of French Zeuhl. Shub-Niggurath's debut is the crown jewel of Zeuhl in the 80's as a whole, for its singular beauty, for its unparalleled ominousness, for its awe-inspiring atmosphere, for its uniqueness in every aspect, and for its timelessness. But, this album should not be called a diamond, instead, it should called a kiloton of coal. A coal that dirties the grass, permeates around you as smog, soaks your clothes and body in an acidic black rain, and imbues your soul with love for the macabre. Les Morts Vont Vite is one of the best Zeuhl and Avant-Garde albums to exist, as well as one of the most inventive Progressive Rock albums I have had the pleasure of discovering, but it is to be feared, for it roams around in the darkest hours of the night, looking for its pray, and if I was convincing enough in this review, I have a strong feeling that it's coming for you.

Rating: 10/10 Favorite Tracks: Incipit Tragaedia, La Ballade de Lénore, Delear Prius

This time though, I'm still struggling. RIO meets Zeuhl, a mix in styles of the most dystopian Magma and chamber rock. Dark and lurching, without the choral element of Magma, but a loosely operatic solo vocalist in Ann Stewart. It's so brooding that it makes Univers Zero seem like bubblegum pop. Absolutely monstrous, I can appreciate the brilliance, but it still pushes my personal boundaries a little too far. The deep fuzzy bass is certainly excellent, and Stewart does a great job of setting the tone of the album, but its often a little too jarring, or a little too slow for me.

Incipit Tragaedia, the first track on the album, is perhaps the one that is most accessible to my ears, with the best examples of all the above without being too extreme.

Maybe I'll come back again in a couple of years!

Shub-Niggurath is a progressive avant-guard rock/zeuhl band from France founded in 1983 by Allan Baullaud. The band is named after one of the deities in Cthulhu Mythos created by the famous American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.

Shub-Niggurath originated playing dark and intense expressionist music influenced by the legendary progressive French rock band Magma and the contemporary classical music. Aside from the members of the band being fans of the former, the pianist and later on also guitarist, Jean-Luc H'rve had studied composition with G'rard Grisey, a French composer of contemporary classical music. After the first album the band started developing towards structured improvisation and electro-acoustic experiments. The band was dissolved in 1995 following the death of cancer of their leader, the bassist Alain Ballaud. They released two proper albums in their lifetime, their debut 'Les Morts Vont Vite', in 1986 and their second 'C''taient De Tr's Grands Vents', in 1991, later followed by their third 'Testament', released in 1994, which is nothing more than a compilation of unreleased material from the 90's. Besides these, there exist two highly rare cassettes, only releases, a self-titled demo anteceding the first album and a live recording released in 1989 by Auricle. Plus later, in 2009, the band also released a fourth studio album named 'Introduction'. But 'Introduction' is in effect nothing more than their debut demo tracks of Shub-Niggurath cleaned up and released on the CD format.

Their debut studio album 'Les Morts Vont Vite', received critical acclaim for its innovative avant-garde inclinations, and major developments over the Magma's sound. The album is very dark and is very close to the RIO/Avant-Prog style.

The line up on the album is Ann Stewart (vocals), Franck W. Fromy (guitar and electric percussion), Jean-Luc Herv' (piano, church organ and harmonium), V'ronique Verdier (trombone), Alain Ballaud (bass) and Franck Coulaud (drums).

'Les Morts Vont Vite' has four tracks, plus two bonus tracks on the 1997 CD release. The main melodic thing is the harrowing soprano vocals of Ann Stewart. The music is developed in an expressionist landscape of ascending and descending chromatic chord progressions on electric guitar, piano and trombone. The music is channeled through the utter darkness and evil. The guitar solos here are more like tortured and primal sounds than anything from jazz or rock or fusion. The percussion owes more to the modern classical than jazz as well. The music here is generally dark and ugly. We can say that it has a deep darkness, and a very interesting ugliness. For the most part, 'Les Morts Vont Vite' is made of the band's improvisation and an overall mix of strange and varied sounds. 'Les Morts Vont Vite' is, in my humble opinion, an album representative of classic RIO/Avant, where its roots can be found in the early creations of Henry Cow, Univers Zero, and Magma. As for the latter band though, I've mentioned it especially because the amazing operatic vocals of Ann Stewart that remind me a bit of those of Stella Vander of Magma, while any other parallels between the music of Shub-Niggurath and that of Magma can't be clearly seen here. Another one of the most influential RIO/Avant bands that is often mentioned in the reviews of Shub-Niggurath is Art Zoyd. In my point of view however, any comparisons between these two bands can't be clearly seen too. Art-Zoyd's music has a very strong classical feel to it and it's light rather than dark, harmonious rather than dissonant. Quite the contrary, the creation of Shub-Niggurath is inspired by the Avant-garde Academic Music and has no much in common ground with the Classical Academic Music.

Returning to 'Les Morts Vont Vite', all the six compositions on 'Les Morts Vont Vite' are about the classic RIO/Avant with pronounced elements of Avant-garde Academic Music and Zeuhl, though the structures of 'Cabine 67' contains also quite a large quantity of very heavy musical elements. Of course, all the arrangements on the album are in the state of constant development and, thus, are completely unpredictable. Ann Stewart's vocals are dramatic in character and are very charming. They're present on all of the tracks on the album but the aforementioned 'Cabine 67'. By the way, this is also the only composition on the album, where all the arrangements on which are exclusively fast and intensive.

Conclusion: I'm deeply impressed with the music on 'Les Morts Vont Vite'. The music here is admirably dense with a kind of a method of madness as opposed to something more varied. Still, their persistence and talent for molding a small array of timbres into almost symphonic mass is really very impressive. But, its music isn't that too much like Magma, lacking to it the energy, repetition, and funk that suffuse Magma's work. Instead, this is music of brooding intensity punctuated by glorious frenzy. This is the best Shub Niggurath's albums and it's the most approachable too. But it's not exactly an easy listening album, though. I really hope you have already this album, otherwise, you are maybe simply too frightened to face this awesome nightmare. Still, I think you must have to listen to this album, and then, maybe you will like it too. Then, you will have found the dark heart of Shub-Niggurath, and Lovecraft will be proud.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

While Ballaud would bring those influences to the table, keyboardist Jean-Luc Herve would bring yet another important aspect of the musical process into the picture. His direct tutelage under Gérard Grisley ushered in what is known as spectral music, which is a form of non-functional harmonic textures and exotic scales that could logically be argued were direct descendents from 20th century classical composers such as Edgar Varese, Giacinto Scelsi, Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen. However, in the 70s what would be deemed as spectral music was intricately involved in the compositional process that dealt with the analysis of the sound with a spectograph and how the composer can manipulate the characteristics of the timbre. While predominantly utilized in the avant-garde reaches of 20th century classical music, SHUB-NIGGURATH adopted these principles in the context of progressive rock.

The band released a full-length demo in 1985 which took on all the characteristics of a bona fide album save the rather primitive production values, however the band had developed one of the scariest styles of music that was seemingly set for the soundtrack of the apocalypse, something the world hadn't experienced since Univers Zero's formidable "Heresie" which emerged the decade prior. While the self-titled demo would have to wait over twenty years for a proper remastering and re-release, SHUB-NIGGURATH which took its name from a deity in the H.P. Lovecraft crafted Cthulhu Mythos universe instead went back to the studio to nurture their musical madness in the form of their first official album LES MORTS VONT VITE (The Dead Go Soon) which follows in the footsteps of the demo (re-released as "Introduction" in 2009) and offers a darkened musical journey straight into the very infernal wastelands of hell.

LES MORTS VONT VITE is an interesting experience as it somehow eschews all categorization. While proceeding in a rather blatant rock context with a percussive drive, a bass driven groove and post-punk meets no wave sounding guitar torture, the music itself mirrors a far more avant-garde intellectualism reserved for the off-kilter offerings of 20th century classical composers. The zeuhl aspects bubble through in that they keep the pace as if they are an unheard driving force that only pierces through the darkened din as to keep the listener from spiraling into a dark and forbidding dimension where minds are completely lost and sanity is banished into unthinkable camps of incredulity, a place where sonic demons reign with impunity and hellish soundscapes tear souls apart for eternity.

While similar to the demo, LES MORTS VONT VITE is less forceful for the most part and also hosts a far superior production value. The guitar grunge and bass fueled doom fuzz is turned down and the acoustics of the instruments are allowed to be heard in full frightening form. The tinkling of minimalistic pianos haunt the soundscape as the spectral vocal hauntings of vocalist Ann Stewart provide a hypnotic wordless etherealness that keeps the musical outpouring from completely sinking into the darkened abyss. The addition of a bass trombone adds a mysterious serious of bleats and extra layer of rhythmic dysfunction that blends into a never- ending series of off-kilter counterpoints that offer various time signatures layered upon each other. While the track "Yog Sothoth" is recycled from the demo, the version here is completely different as it generates more of a surreal mood setting rather than an grinding doom.

The album consists of four lengthy tracks with the opener "Incipit Tragaedia" hovering near the sixteen minute mark. The first three tracks craftily navigate through mostly surreal soundscapes that incorporate the avant-prog and zeuhl elements and meld them with the classical infusions of the avant-garde. The true bombast however is reserved for the closing "La Ballade De Lénoire" which paradoxically is no ballad at all but rather a brutal mix of thundering percussive attacks, blistering bass bantering and dissonant guitar abuse straight out of the no wave playbook of bands like DNA and Theoretical Girls. Strange microtonal melodies are generated and everything seems somewhat familiar yet slightly off center, a trait that i consider quite desirable in magnificently dramatic music such as this. The 1997 CD reissue contains two equally compelling bonus tracks: "Delear Prius" and "J'ai Vu Naguère En Peinture Les Harpies Ravissant Le Repas De Phynée" which are well worth inclusion although they are quite short in comparison. This album is the stuff nightmares are made of! Some of the most brilliant sounds ever to conspire to scare the living daylights out of you. Masterpiece!

The band was founded by Allan Ballaud sometime in 1982 or 1983 and would remain active until his untimely death from cancer in 1995. The band consisted of seven musicians in the beginning including Ballaud (bass), Franck Coulaud (drums,) Franck W. Fromy (guitars), Jean-Luc Herve (piano, organ & harmonium, Ann Stewart (vocals), Véronique Verdier (trombone) and Michel Kervinio (even more drums and percussion). This eponymously titled debut emerged initially as a demo preceding their classic album "Les Morts Vonte Vite." It emerged in 1985 as a mere cassette with a production job to match but has since been remastered and re- introduced to the band's canon in 2009 under the title INTRODUCTION. Despite the intent of a re-release there are slight differences between the original demo and the what would be called INTRODUCTION but only negligible differences well made up by the greater remastering job.

This demo is considered somewhat mandatory for SHUB-NIGGURATH fans due to the fact that the tracks never appeared on another album with the exception of the opener "Yog-Sothoth" which is a heavier and rawer version. The band's goal was obviously to create some of the darkest and most terrifying sounds ever heard. While staying within the rhythmic confines of Magma inspired zeuhl complete with the operatic vocal style of Ann Stewart, the music itself relies more on an apocalyptic "Heresie" era of Univers Zero styled chamber rock which the band pulls off effortlessly with a stellar instrumental section. One of the unique factors for SHUB-NIGGURATH was the inclusion of a bass trombone to add hitherto unthinkable bleats to their doom-laden bass fuzz and rhythmic marches into the world of dread.

This demo or INTRODUCTION is very similar to the album "Les Morts Vont Vite" as can be expected since that album continues the dynamics presented here in a more cohesively uniform fashion, however this demo provides a more intriguing experience in a frighteningly raw journey that imposes order of disparately tortured sounds through the zeuhl decree. While a rhythmic march is somewhat loosely contained, the real magic lies in the dissonant guitar squeals, the heavy bombastic outbursts and the ethereal vocal chants of Stewart. Never before has music sounded so tortured and enshrouded in darkness. Ballaud learned well from the Univers Zero playbook and upped their game exponentially.

Part of the appeal of SHUB-NIGGURATH is the fact that pianist / organist Jean-Luc Herve studied under the tutelage of 20th century classical composer Gérard Grisey who was a key figure in what was called the spectralist movement which emerged in the 70s and with the assistance of computer analysis would analyze the quality of the timbre in acoustic music derived from its synthesis, therefore a whole new method of music existing as an aesthetic rather than a distinct style emerged. While somewhat known in the avant-world of 20th century classical music, SHUB-NIGGURATH were instrumental into bringing these techniques into the greater progressive rock universe.

This debut by SHUB-NIGGURATH can really be considered a halfway point between the Kobaian zeuhl magic that Magma unleashed in the early 70s with the intricacies of chamber rock made popular by bands such as Univers Zero and Art Zoyd. While "Les Morts Vont Vite" is surely the first stop in exploring the demented and darkened world of SHUB-NIGGURATH, this debut demo turned archival is not to be missed for it is as haunting as anything you could possibly imagine with a musical backbone to match. If you seriously want some apocalyptic sounds that take you to a vast underworld of avant-extremities then don't mistake this demo for a mere weak version of the debut album. This is every bit as accomplished and worth of a prime time performance that offers tracks unavailable anywhere else.

The band was founded by Allan Ballaud sometime in 1982 or 1983 and would remain active until his untimely death from cancer in 1995. The band consisted of seven musicians in the beginning including Ballaud (bass), Franck Coulaud (drums,) Franck W. Fromy (guitars), Jean-Luc Herve (piano, organ & harmonium, Ann Stewart (vocals), Véronique Verdier (trombone) and Michel Kervinio (even more drums and percussion). This eponymously titled debut emerged initially as a demo preceding their classic album "Les Morts Vonte Vite." It emerged in 1985 as a mere cassette with a production job to match but has since been remastered and re- introduced to the band's canon in 2009 under the title INTRODUCTION. Despite the intent of a re-release there are slight differences between the original demo and the what would be called INTRODUCTION but only negligible differences well made up by the greater remastering job.

This demo is considered somewhat mandatory for SHUB-NIGGURATH fans due to the fact that the tracks never appeared on another album with the exception of the opener "Yog-Sothoth" which is a heavier and rawer version. The band's goal was obviously to create some of the darkest and most terrifying sounds ever heard. While staying within the rhythmic confines of Magma inspired zeuhl complete with the operatic vocal style of Ann Stewart, the music itself relies more on an apocalyptic "Heresie" era of Univers Zero styled chamber rock which the band pulls off effortlessly with a stellar instrumental section. One of the unique factors for SHUB-NIGGURATH was the inclusion of a bass trombone to add hitherto unthinkable bleats to their doom-laden bass fuzz and rhythmic marches into the world of dread.

This demo or INTRODUCTION is very similar to the album "Les Morts Vont Vite" as can be expected since that album continues the dynamics presented here in a more cohesively uniform fashion, however this demo provides a more intriguing experience in a frighteningly raw journey that imposes order of disparately tortured sounds through the zeuhl decree. While a rhythmic march is somewhat loosely contained, the real magic lies in the dissonant guitar squeals, the heavy bombastic outbursts and the ethereal vocal chants of Stewart. Never before has music sounded so tortured and enshrouded in darkness. Ballaud learned well from the Univers Zero playbook and upped their game exponentially.

Part of the appeal of SHUB-NIGGURATH is the fact that pianist / organist Jean-Luc Herve studied under the tutelage of 20th century classical composer Gérard Grisey who was a key figure in what was called the spectralist movement which emerged in the 70s and with the assistance of computer analysis would analyze the quality of the timbre in acoustic music derived from its synthesis, therefore a whole new method of music existing as an aesthetic rather than a distinct style emerged. While somewhat known in the avant-world of 20th century classical music, SHUB-NIGGURATH were instrumental into bringing these techniques into the greater progressive rock universe.

This debut by SHUB-NIGGURATH can really be considered a halfway point between the Kobaian zeuhl magic that Magma unleashed in the early 70s with the intricacies of chamber rock made popular by bands such as Univers Zero and Art Zoyd. While "Les Morts Vont Vite" is surely the first stop in exploring the demented and darkened world of SHUB-NIGGURATH, this debut demo turned archival is not to be missed for it is as haunting as anything you could possibly imagine with a musical backbone to match. If you seriously want some apocalyptic sounds that take you to a vast underworld of avant-extremities then don't mistake this demo for a mere weak version of the debut album. This is every bit as accomplished and worth of a prime time performance that offers tracks unavailable anywhere else.