LA MER – Tetrahedra

Not knowing quite what to expect from this visually intriguing album sporting a painting by Henri Martin as its cover artwork, I was pleasantly surprised by it morose mixture of catchy black metal, goth rock, and industrial music. La Mer sounds different to pretty much everything else out there and offers an enticing albeit bleak atmosphere that is rather unique and special, and I dig the diversity and unpredictable nature of the song material. Slices of electro rock and synth pop also rear their heads now and again yet this outfit somehow succeeds in retaining a crude, harsh, and punishing vibe from beginning to end. Granted, the merging of genres and the eclectic blend of various ideas as presented in this particular musical context do not always entail that things flow organically or that things move seamlessly from one part to the next, and the LP certainly could have been more cohesive and less disjointed in places, but believe me when I say that I treasure such melancholy gems as ‘To the End‘, ‘Patina‘, and the intense ‘Gallows Hill‘. And the gloom-filled ‘Where Sadness Lasts Forever‘ is as depressive as its title suggests.

Inventive, original, and memorable stuff with a raw sound that harbors plenty of pure unfiltered emotion and an angstridden aura.