SANCTVS – De L'abîme Au Plérôme

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7.0

• Bands:
  SANCTVS
• Duration: 00:42:58
• Available from:
• Label:

• Osmose Productions

The Sanctvs project returns, another underground reality coming from Canada, precisely from Montreal – yet another sign of how more and more high-calibre projects and bands have been emerging in the north of the United States for more than a decade now, to the point of being able to consider Canada another of the most relevant nations for black metal.
In any case, Sanctvs is the project of Mortheos, returning to Osmose after debuting five years ago on Sepulchral Productions, a Canadian label key to the growth of the national scene. Mortheos is also part of the very good Gevurah, black metal with occult themes which in 2022 surprised many with a dark and particular album like “Gehinnom”, published by Profound Lore.

If we want to start with a comparison, the creature of Mortheos moves on black metal territories as we expected, but it is different from the aforementioned Gevurah: violence and speed are fundamental in the structures, but the same occult approach is missing, even if Sanctvs is still linked to philosophical and spiritual themes starting from the beautiful black and white cover and the logo complete with a crown, creating an iconographic approach that can recall certain Whoredom Rife.
Musically, however, we are faced with six rather long songs sung – or should we say shouted – in French, almost always set to very fast tempos and tight riffs.
There are some more atmospheric moments – such as the beginning of “Thrène Pour Un Monde Révolu” or its subsequent break complete with mini solo – which unfold in medium-solemn tempos, but the overall impression is that of a rough work with an oppressive overall sound.
Mortheos' vocal interpretation, declaimed and often similar to those of the classic Nidrosian black metal records, also stands out thanks to the French-language metric which, we must admit, becomes a good element of diversification in Sanctvs. For the rest, the album is formally impeccable: supported by an adequate production, neither too underground nor too polished, it proves to be well played but equally devoid of surprising solutions, with the perhaps exception of the aforementioned “Thrène Pour Un Monde Révolu”.

“De l'abîme au plérôme” is, in its forty-two minutes of duration, a cohesive and coherent album, but as mentioned it perhaps suffers in the long run from hooks of originality: if we take it as an exercise in black metal style it fully achieves its objective, while we find it really difficult to assign it a strong individuality, if we exclude the singing in French.
In essence, we believe it will be difficult to remember Sanctvs in the myriad of underground black metal proposals, but it is equally true that “De l'abîme au plérôme” will certainly also be of interest to all fans (of Canadian black metal and beyond), given that it is indeed yet another band, but with considerable artistic potential.