MOURIR

Black metal with a hardcore pedigree: Mourir began as Vermine, the one-man project of Olivier Lolmède, once bassist in Plebeian Grandstand. Now he leads a Toulouse quartet with guitarist Alexandre Bérenguer, drummer Maël Pretet, and bassist Théophile Antolinos of BRUIT≤. Animal Bouffe Animal (Throatruiner Records, 2020) stayed close to traditional black metal, and Disgrâce (Throatruiner Records, 2022) turned it dense and dissonant. Insolence (Pelagic Records, 2025) was a raw, spontaneous EP, and Nous, le venin (Pelagic Records, 2026) pulls the other way: more time, more arrangement, and six songs, the last of them ten minutes long.

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Bérenguer sketches the songs on a computer, Lolmède pushes back on them, and then the band takes them apart and rebuilds them until they play like a concert. Everything has been recorded live, with energy placed above polish. Hardcore is where they come from and post-metal the language they learned next, with Neurosis and Cult of Luna as the names they give for it, while black metal supplies the blast beats and the twisting, dissonant tremolo. Some of the chords are wrong on purpose, uncomfortable by design, because the aim is feeling over comfort. A low drone runs under most songs, and Lolmède carries his French lyrics on a voice that travels from deep growl to high howl. The gaze is cold and turned on a society that has lost its footing, with a few slivers of hope left.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

Mourir write for the room, and the room hears it first in the body: blast beats that rattle the jaw, tremolo that sets the nerves on edge, a voice that travels from growl to howl without drawing breath. The songs close in tight and stay there until the tension snaps, and then, for a moment, the guitars turn strangely beautiful. Mourir play it head-on, and the aim is trance.