Artist: Chemin De Croix
Country: Canada
Label: Cosmic Cause Productions
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2023
Over the course over the past two years or so the Pant Y Meddygon label has been issuing an impressing amount of interesting releases. While they might not all sound very much alike, they have more or less one thing in common: a deeply rooted penchant for an utterly raw and stripped-down sort of Black Metal. This year, however, Pant Y Meddygon owner MBN decided to carry the label to its grave and start a new one under the name of Cosmic Cause Productions. He clearly had his reasons to do so, as with the new label comes a slightly updated vision, but while listening to Chemin De Croix, one of this first releases under the Cosmic Cause Productions banner, I can at least say he did not loose any of his sense of great and compelling Raw Black Metal.
With ‘MMXXIII’ this Canadian band presents their very first demo, and, frankly, it is an amazing one. If you liked any of the releases on the Pant Y Meddygon label, chances are that you will just equally be of fond of this demo. While Chemin De Croix might sound less punk-fueled as some of the other bands, including some MBN’s own creations, the raw and pure energy that ‘MMXXIII’ has been recorded with is just equally intriguing. The rough and Lo-Fi production serves the music in such a unique manner that it easily brings you back to those pre-downloading days of the early 00’s in which you had to get your kicks out of tapes that you more or less randomly chose from mailing lists from obscure labels. It is that authentic ambiance that really does the talking here, the great repetitive riffs and the mesmerizing melodies turn out to be true earworms and make up for the vocals that, although they are there, are so far tucked away in the overall sound that they go almost unnoticed. It may not be entirely comparable, but the three songs plus short intro presented on this cassette tape, together clocking in at just over 15 minutes, remind me more than once of that exciting French Black Metal scene from the second half of the 1990’s. Those Les Légions Noires bands poured out their Black Metal on the totally unprepared audience in the same primitive and razor-sharp way: unpolished and emotion in its purest form. This is pure class as far as I am concerned.
Although the moment is yet to come when MBN disappoints me, his bands and label activities combined, I can definitely say that Chemin De Croix is one of the most surprising and musically strong products he has presented us with. As I write this, Chemin De Croix, which by the way is leaving in the middle who or what is behind it, has already reached the point of releasing new recordings, but it goes without saying that this demo tape definitely tastes like more.
