Folk metal is typically one of the more repellent genres of metal to my tastes. The excessive amounts of cheese give many bands a kitschy feel that I can’t shake. That being said, there are a few bands where I can find something truly enjoyable. Moisson Livide is one such band. This Gascon metal band, an offshoot of similarly enjoyable folk metal band Boisson Divine, showcases main man Darkagnan trying a more extreme edge to what is normally very power metal-forward folk metal, and it works quite well. Debut Sent Empèri Gascon, released on the French medieval inspired black metal label Antiq, is a lot of fun, and varies between different genres in a way that can feel like a kitchen sink approach at times, but manages to rein themselves in before things get too out of hand.
The use of traditional instruments (including a bouzouki, a boha, and tin whistle, among others) helps bring an order into this chaos, as without them, switching from black metal to folk metal to power metal to even hardcore punk would sound so off-kilter that it would be very off-putting. There’s another factor that makes longer songs on this record easy to grab hold of: soaring triumphant choruses. “L’òmi xens passat” and album highlight “Caçaire d’eternitat” are two of the best power metal-inspired songs I’ve heard this year, and that’s purely due to the infectious energy they bring to the table. The latter’s chorus has been living in my mind ever since I first heard Sent Empèri Gascon, and the song is always one I come back to, as it’s a great example of how much fun a band can have. Wildly fluctuating between black metal in the verses to the soaring power metal-forward chorus to the hunting horn interlude that goes into a folk metal party, this song is a great example of how much fun Moisson Livide is.
And yet, I still can’t find myself completely captivated with Sent Empèri Gascon. Some of the choices made throughout are perplexing, most notably in the hardcore punk inspired “A.C.A.B. (Armanhaqués comandò anti-borgesòts)”. This is an enjoyable song, but it feels so out of place that I can’t help but draw a comparison to “Leffotrak” on the wonderful album by Messa, Close: a grind-forward song on a doom record. In addition, the longer tracks could be trimmed down due to light bloat. It’s very refreshing to hear metal or any music for that matter in a language that’s so foreign to me — in this case, Gascon — that the very nature of Sent Empèri Gascon, perplexing as it may be, leaves me wanting more listens. It doesn’t hurt that Moisson Livide evidently had a fantastic time making this as well.
