Chevalier - Chapitre II

Oh FUUU-- this ticks about every metal box I have. The first thing you'll notice on the opener is the bass, which is wrong and should not be, but which straightens out later, foob. The vocals are androgynous banshee wails, but with goddamn hooks, and the bookending tracks have backing vox that are literally just banshee howls from the void. The production is both wall-of-noise and somehow dubby? and the structures are knotty but intuitive - I suck at metal comparisons but I'd say it's not entirely unwarranted to put this at least in the parking lot of the ballpark of Flames of Hell's Fire and Steel, which couldn't possibly be a bad thing to be compared to. In a way, it's the perfect mixture of everything right and just and honest and true and sweet about metal in 1986 and 2018 - atmo-trad, anyone? Fucking amazing.