Amidst scarred and pockmarked ground, now covered in a tender resurgence of green, a towering bleached hilt juts skyward. Beneath its monumental cross-guard lie the bones of the nameless fallen, barely visible through small windows stained by time, skulls grinning sightlessly at the morbidly curious peeking down into the abyss at the subterranean white mountain. So stands the Douaumont ossuary, housing the bones of at least 130.000 unidentified victims of the 1916 Battle of Verdun. Fittingly adorned by an upward-gazing skeleton surrounded by muted skulls, French blackened sludge four-piece Verdun's fourth full-length album Abyssal Womb crawls forth from war-furrowed earth, ending a seven year hiatus.
This is my first foray into Verdun's eerie oeuvre, and I am largely impressed if not blown away by what I hear. On Abyssal Womb, the band pummel the listener with a mostly mid-paced assault of riffs as thick as the local blue clay, locked in an appropriately protracted trench war between knuckle dragging riffs and more atmospheric passages. Sonically, this lands the band somewhere between Strigoi and Barishi, although in balancing these sounds they forego the sheer brutality of the former while eschewing the flourishes of the latter.
Verdun appeal most when they accentuate their heaviness with melodic development, as on “Silent Witness”, “The Man Behind My Eyes” and post-metal leaning closer “Les Noces du Néant”. These cuts use contemplative, reverberating melodies judiciously to prevent Abyssal Womb from getting stuck in the mud. “He Who Killed the Devil” and “Rise of the Atomic Ghouls” shell the audience with powerful riffs a la a bleaker Graves at Sea, but lack a certain melodic je ne sais quoi or true stank-face inducing heaviness. On tracks like these, Verdun run the risk of squelching to a standstill.
Although not every composition managed to keep me engaged fully, Verdun creates an impressively oppressive yet unhurried mood, aided by a full sound, a prominent bass presence and a vicious edge to David Sadok’s vocal assault. His blackened snarl is full of vitriol, piss and vinegar, while his sparse, gruff cleans are non-intrusive (if also somewhat unremarkable barring the album’s closer). Géraud Jonquet’s drumming is commanding but restrained where needed, and Jêròme Pinelli’s guitar work evolves throughout the album, earning the highest marks on its last two tracks, where heaviness takes a backseat to a pensive, post-rock tinged melancholy. However, I am perhaps most enamored with Florian Celdran’s thick yet nimble bass, adding tectonic heft, while also weaving in nimble, languid passages like the noodly, psychedelic bridge on “He Who Killed the Devil”.
While they may not push any envelopes or go topping any year-end lists, Verdun have nevertheless unleashed a powerful, commanding slab of sludgy, blackened goodness. I’d urge anyone jonesing for a forty minute helping of mud-trudging, clay kicking stomps with the occasional melodic flourish to step into this home of unknown bones and give Abyssal Womb a go.