WormfoodAfter 15 years of existence, Wormfood are releasing their fifth studio album five years after their last release. The Parisian quintet can rather easily be labelled as avant-garde doom/Goth as their slow ponderous tracks weave complicated yet rather depressing tapestries of flamboyant majesty.

The opening “Prologue” has the poetic delivery of an eulogy, as Emmanuel “El Worm” Lévy’s clipped French is whispered with an eerie slowness before Thomas Jacquelin kicks up a storm on the drums as “Serviteur du Roi” begins. Axel Wursthorn’s grandiose keyboard sound is accentuated by Renaud Fauconnier and Lévy’s guitars as the hefty riffs are accompanied by leisurely and predominantly spoken vocals.

The just shy of 10 minute “Ordre de Mobilisation Générale” has a rather theatrical composition as it seems to work its way through various movements where Vincent Liard’s bass has the guitar leads crashing over it before everything builds up again with a flurry of guitars, keyboards and rather hastily sung baritone vocals, before breaking down again to operatic keyboards with gently tapped drums and sultrily whispered vocals.

I must admit that while I don’t understand any French, the tone and delivery definitely have a very risqué slant and “Mangevers” should have absolutely no problem getting the ladies swooning on the dance floor.

If Pete Steele sang with a French accent, this is exactly what he’d sound like, and I guess the sitar by Paul Bento on “Gone On The Hoist (G.O.T.H.)” just adds to that ambience as he did when playing on Type O albums. This also happens to be the only time English is sung on the album.

Feeling surprisingly allegro “Collectionneur de Poupées” uses the quick drumming and rather uplifting keyboards to drag the vocals away from their usual dreary gloom and allow the guitars to linger on their long slow riffs adding bends and false harmonics to spice things up. “Géhenne” on the other hand slows everything down once more to deliver the rather sombre and somnolent prose over a tickled piano and picked guitars which progress to power chords when extra emphasis is required.

The final track “Poisonne” has even more keyboards and varies from bubbly and happy sounding to rather dark and foreboding as the track progresses and while I’d like to think it flows with the lyrical content, I can’t attest to that.

A really enjoyable album, even if it’s meant to be rather gloomy. And as it’s all in a language I can’t understand, I have to rely on tone and delivery for mood and emotive connection.

(8/10  Marco Gaminara)

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