Pavillon Rouge – Dynasteia Klub

By RingMaster Review on March 2, 2018 • ( 1 )

Continuing the conflict in their self-acclaimed “War on the dancefloor”, French metallers Pavillon Rouge are poised to unleash their latest assault in the shape of third album Dynasteia Klub. It brings an escalation in their sonic violence, drama, and virulent trespasses as well as thickly bound fascination as the band’s fusion of electro, industrial, and blackened extreme metal breaches new thresholds and heights in creative dissension. It is a one of a kind hostile pleasure invading body and psyche like a contentious puppeteer.

Formed by guitarist/programmer Mervyn and drummer YVH back in 2008, Pavillon Rouge swiftly made a potent impact with their merger of black metal and hardcore techno bound in atmospheric suggestion but especially caught attention and acclaim with debut album Solmeth Pervitine three years later. Its success and strengths were subsequently eclipsed by its successor Legio Axis Ka in 2015, an inescapable assault and incitement capping a time seeing the Grenoble hailing outfit play with the likes of Psygnosis, Himinbjorg, Svart Crown, and The CNK. Both releases were fuelled by a sound which showed real individuality and now finds even stronger character and adventure within Dynasteia Klub. It has the body dancing, the imagination conjuring, and the senses cowering to its bold invasive tempest; guitarist/vocalist Mu Cephei, bassist E.Shulgin, drummer XVH, and Mervyn, a line-up completed live by guitarist ADB, voraciously trespassing with industrial uniqueness.

Album opener L’Harmonie et la Force instantly spreads an atmospheric breath around ears, intrigue and shadows blending within its intimation as melodies begin to vein the lure. All the time a rhythmic pulse is brewing, looming closer with portentous hues and eventually driving the heart of the sonic incursion. Vocals scowl and holler as beats throb, melodic enterprise as toxic yet magnetic as the black raw intensity of the track. Within seconds the body was bouncing, ears devouring, and enjoyment brewing, the track increasingly offering the kind of predacious enterprise which marked out the last album but with greater craft and maturity not forgetting fresh character.

The following Ô Legions, Ô Triomphes initially gives respite for the breathlessness drawn by its predecessor, synths colluding in the song’s melodic weaving though all the time you sense an underlying voracity and urgency which soon takes the reins of another quickly and fiercely addictive challenge. Even then it still retains its control as vocals and heavy shadows accentuate its theatre of threat and manipulation though a mercurial edge lines it all ensuring a lack of predictability.

The album’s title track immerses the senses next, its weave of electronic, industrial, and grievous metal an infestation of irritable infectiousness around vocal and rhythmic discord and temptation respectively. There is a cosmopolitan hue to the guitar’s melodic web, a theatre echoing the lyrical aspects such as discipline, joy, and forgiveness bred in the release’s Ancient Greek Philosophy inspired themes. Again the band refuse to release the listener from its invasive physical tenacity; ebbs and flows in its gait only adding to the inescapable infectiousness before Le Rayonnement Du Temple Nouveau brings a relative calm with its initial invitation. Soon though, an intrusive tapestry of sound and emotion envelops ears, its grasp dark and suggestive as it explores the senses and imagination.

From its first breath, the outstanding In Aenigmate grips with insatiable hunger, senses whipping rhythms pushing its boisterous trespass as guitars and bass flirt with the same rapacious intent while Bodhisattva offers a kinder intensity though it is just as potent in its creative maze and emotional ferocity led by vocal friction. An inventive fusion of the familiar and fresh, the song did not quite inflame the passions as many before it but with the body uniting in its energy and appetite in its drama, the song left pleasure full before the more atmospherically and physically barbarous Notre Foi Brûle Encore took limbs and lungs on another solicitous ride. As with all tracks, unexpected twists and turns add to the drama of its insatiable intent without ever bringing a deviation from the creative, emotional, and corporeal voracity.

The album concludes with firstly another of its pinnacles in Dans L’ailleurs Absolu; a song which, if not in sound, rhythmically and intensively has something of an early Killing Joke feel to it behind a collage of samples and riveting textures. Its unbridled magnetism draws the listener into the closing ethereal embrace of Ad Augusta. Unsurprisingly it has a tempestuous heart which breeds ravenous rock ‘n’ roll, a storm of enterprise continuing to be draped in the melodic poetry of synths.

It is a tremendous, energy sapping end to an album which relentlessly devours the listener as much as it persistently pleasures them. Like many we were hooked on Pavillon Rouge’s warfare thanks to Legio Axis Ka, now the even more creatively powerful and striking Dynasteia Klub brings lust into play.

Dynasteia Klub is released March 30^th through Season of Mist.