Un Regard Froid — Palinodie (Anticinéma)
Un Regard Froid have been in existence since 2014, and have thus far have only released one mini album, this full length & two C20s. The projects last release Devoir.Génétique.Violence.Hiérarchie, appeared in 2016- so this is the projects first release in a few years.
Palinodie (Anticinéma) is was released by the French label Cioran Records. And at present is only available in digital format, but you can pre-order the CD, which is planned to be released in early October- either from the label or the projects Bandcamp.
On the cover of the album, in the center, is a photograph of a human eye infected by some parasitic worm. It's more like a screenshot of some video, perhaps intended for the students of medical colleges. Around the photo is a frame similar to the black and white texture resembling the noise on the screen when watching videotapes. On the background of the photograph of the eye, there is a white symbol or the logo of the project Un Regard Froid, which very vaguely resembles a swastika.
The album, has a total runtime of just over thirty minutes, and consists of seven tracks. Since the style of this project is described as Death Industrial / Power Electronics, I already assumed that I can hear on this album. Expectations, to some extent, were justified, but I would like to describe in more detail my impressions. I will not dwell on each track, because the concept and sound of the album are a single whole to the point that all the tracks have merged for me into one.
It is worth saying that there is almost no Death Industrial here. There are hints of this genre - a blurred rhythm and obsession. But there is no that viscous gloomy hypnotism bordering on Dark Ambient and Drone. Power Electronics is also presented here in a rather unusual form. As someone very familiar with this genre, I know that a synthesizer should be used here. Most likely it is, but the sound is so overloaded and distorted so we can only guess about its source. It seemed to me that the minds behind the project got too carried away in trying to create a very extreme and original sound. As a result, the bass and some of the low frequencies either disappeared or are poorly identified. All that we can clearly hear is the rumbling, crackling and screeching at high and medium frequencies. Fortunately, rhythmic and compositional basis will not disappear and quite distinct. But sometimes, this similarity of PE goes to the side of Harsh Noise and then we hear a very cruel cacophony. I would not even call it PE. So I’d say a better name for what we have here is Harsh Electronics.
A few words about the vocals. This is traditional for such genres of extreme electronic music. Slightly distorted by the delay and reverberation, the vocalist's recitative aggressive screams, which tells us something in French. Unfortunately, I do not know this language, and I can not tell you about the content of the texts. The album also contains speech samples, but not so much that is beneficial to the overall sound.
In the end, we have a strong, extreme, but slightly ambiguous album. I believe that with rhythm, vocals, and more composition flair, we might have had some interesting here. But, in the desire to be hyper-extreme, the project has made such a hard, dry and overloaded sound that ears can get sick when listening. Sometimes I just took off my headphones to rest a little .... My opinion is - If Un Regard Froid made the sound less cruel and added more low frequencies, the result would be less extreme, but more friendly to the listener.