-ii- – Apostles Of The Flesh
-ii- – Apostles Of The Flesh
Self-Released
Release Date: 03/10/25
Running Time: 65:00
Review by Dark Juan
6/10
It is a windy and cold afternoon in West Yorkshire. The air slices through clothes and sets icy blades against your flesh, drawing wounds in freezing streaks across your face and hands, giving the good burghers of Sowerby Bridge a bluish, zombie-like tinge as they hurry around, doing what they need to do before they speedily return to their homes, to the warm hearth and warmer bosoms of loved ones and pets. Although this delightful descriptive flow has just been ruined by a) the sun coming out and b) Hodgson the elder Smellhound scratching his arse on the rug. The things I go through to create ambience, and then it is ruined by matters beyond my control…
Nevertheless, we push on, and today we are returning to the frankly fucking excellent Extreme Music scene of my beloved France, in the company of -ii-, which is pronounced “Two Eyes”, who hail from Nancy. I have brought the majestic Platter of Splatter ™ from where it was contained, and I have placed “Apostles of The Flesh” gently upon it. This massive and ambitious album of over an hour’s length draws together Noise, Goth, Post Rock, Darkwave and Trip Hop to form an album that redefines Industrial into the bargain. On my first listen I was reminded of a heavier Snake River Conspiracy with welded-on Riot Grrl and punishing Industrial beats, and I found it interesting enough but it didn’t really grab me too much, apart from the clean and beautiful vocals of Hélène Ruzic. But then on repeated listens there were staggering moments of beauty (like on ‘Lotis’ where the range of Ruzic is amply demonstrated, going from her usual high, piping, clear vocal down to some dissonance and distortion in her voice – in fact her vocal style is very reminiscent of Bjork, and the Industrial hammering is tempered by some non-tradition instruments in Extreme Music like the bouzouki in a frankly gorgeous musical passage near the end of the song) tempered with some pounding Industrial rhythms on ‘Sisyphus In Red’, a song that somehow manages to meld the Gothic pretensions of The Cure to the machine precision of KMFDM.
It’s a weird listen. I want to love it, but it appears to be missing a certain… something… I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it is the marriage of Industrial and Goth. It’s an interesting sound, but (especially considering I am a Goff and Industrial really is my jam, I’m finding it very hard to relate to) it is somehow too polished. My feeling is that this music should be bleak and alienating and -ii- are all too human, too warm, and although frequently ethereal, there’s a lack of depth.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a very good album, and it is inventive and exciting and ploughs its own peculiar furrow, but it is not creating imagery in my head like all my favourite records do. That upsets me, because as I said earlier, I desperately want to love -ii- and their music like I do Godflesh and Ward XVI and Cwfen and Grendel’s Syster, but I simply don’t. And there is no easy reason for this, and that really pisses me off.
Maybe it is the apparent lack of a sense of humour. -ii- strike Dark Juan as a band that are too serious by half. Even Maynard James Keenan has a bizarre sense of humour in there somewhere – I am not getting a sense of the personalities of the performers of this music, instead I am only seeing what they can do, not what they feel. It is so hard to describe. “Apostles Of The Flesh” is not without emotion. I feel that it is only melancholy and that there is no real deviation from this. Which is fine if that’s your bag, but I want light and shade or even differing shades of grey. Nothing on this album rises into the sunlight – it is perpetual twilight and endless sorrow. Yearning is all well and good, but there has to be a point where you reach out for what you desire so much, and -ii- appear to have locked themselves into a spiral of sitting and thinking about their desires rather than acting upon them. I will not deny that that in itself is a powerful state of being, but it is all so passive.
Again, I remind you that the music is artful, with interesting arrangements and an arctic-pure production where every single little fill, layer and flourish can be clearly heard and the instrumentation is inventive and interesting and Ruzic’s vocals are always charming and beguiling, but the band appear to hold themselves back – ‘Where The Diamonds Are Hurled’ shows what the band are capable of when they lift themselves out of their self-imposed malaise. This is a magical song, one that soars and dives down to obliterate the listener with Jericho Trumpets blaring and Tool-like arrangements combining several levels of the music together into something that is staggeringly beautiful and powerful at the same time, all underpinned with machine-like, metronomic percussion.
In short, this album has everything I love dearly going for it, but I am just not feeling it, and I don’t know why. It has individuality, is inventive and brings new sounds to the table and a distinct French flavour. Yet, I can’t love it. And I truly dig the whole French Metal and Extreme music scene.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Le système breveté de notation des éclaboussures de sang « Dark Juan » pour mes nombreux amis francophones. Je vous écris une fois de plus pour vous assurer de mon amitié éternelle et de mon amour pour la France, mis à part la bureaucratie, qui est une corvée. Ma maison en Bretagne et ma vie là-bas me manquent terriblement) awards a very conflicted 6/10 to -ii-, who are everything I adore yet appear to be beyond my comprehension. This has made me very sad, yet I will still follow them with considerable interest because they have everything I hold dear, and it might literally just be my mood that’s stopping my adoration.
TRACKLISTING:
01. The Birth Of Venus
02. Digging For Blood
03. Lotis
04. Sisyphus in Red
05. The Fountain of Helicon
06. Pearls Beneath the Ember
07. L’Onde et l’Abysse
08. Where the Diamonds are Hurled
09. Sisters of the Coven
10. Under The Skin
11. When Beauty is a Crime
12. Virginia’s Mirror
LINE-UP:
Hélène Ruzic – Vocals/lyrics
Benjamin Racine – Guitars, bass, synths, percussions, kayamb, xaphoon, bouzouki, piano
Maxime Keller – Bass, synths, piano
David l’Huillier – Drums, percussion
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
