Cardinal Noire took their time: the duo made up of Finns Kalle Lindberg (Protectorate) and Lasse Alander released an EP in 2020, but their last album, Deluge, released six years ago. Now they're finally back with a new label, moving from Audiotrauma to Artoffact Records, and an album whose title, we suspect, is well chosen: Vitriol.
Indeed, these two have never been into easy to swallow, pleasant and comforting music. Their approach to industrial music is inevitably reminiscent of Vancouver bosses (Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly) and Killshelter's introduction makes no attempt to disguise these illustrious influences. The vocals are menacing and nasal, the layers weave a hallucinatory, psychedelic panorama: the acid nightmare is as anxiety-inducing as it is familiar. Cardinal Noire have made coldness their trademark, but that doesn't stop them adding emotional spikes to their dark electronica, like the panic that explodes in the frenetic rhythm of Gun Metal, which will furiously please fans of Too Dark Park, but also in the melancholy lulls (Precious Hearts, an introspective breath in the middle of the album).
Cardinal Noire's music paints a bleak picture of a rotting world creating chaos, and while the machines are of course dominant and intractable, the music is not devoid of humanity. There's something visceral about this bitter observation, the synths seeming to seek the light in an opaque fog, an almost cathartic quest for hope that culminates in Chariot. Alas, the verdict is merciless: screwed for screwed, we might as well plunge straight into the mechanical darkness and finish us off, first with the furious, fatally heavy The Swans, then the putrid Hecatomb, a decomposing synthetic ensemble as black as it is intimidating.
Cardinal Noire's Vitriol doesn't overhaul their recipe, still borrowing from the bosses of industrial and EBM, but their uncompromising electro-dark has been further enriched and refined. Their sound is heavy and condemned, reminiscent of the philosophy of Richard Lederer aka Ice Ages : you're not here to dance. The journey through the album is an eventful one, and while we wouldn't dare describe it as ‘pleasant’, it's certainly addictive in its reliefs, its tortuous meanders where hues and textures blend together. After all, getting lost in a mechanical mass grave is never a bad idea!
