Since its first steps in 2018, Usquam has evolved. From the trio with singer who signed the Reborn EP in 2021, the group has transformed into a quartet with Jessy Christ as the voice... in the end, reborn is a title that could have applied to Ex Nihilo, their first album! Rebirth is also one of the themes addressed by the band, who draw on the founding myths of different cultures to highlight their commonalities and extract from these primordial traditions the material for new stories to be told. Life is made of cycles,as they say: nothing comes from nothing.
Usquam doesn't care about spatial and temporal boundaries and takes a distance that allows us to appreciate things as a whole. You might think of this as a bit of a Zen approach, a wise old man thing to do. Don't worry, the band don't dawdle when it comes to getting to the heart of the matter. Their presentation warns: ‘it's high time we put man back in his rightful place: that of an infinitesimal and ephemeral particle’. Ah, here are words that resonate with us! The heaviness of Altar Ego's introduction imposes a certain mystical solemnity as well as the impression that we're up against something massive, far more imposing and important than us, poor, vaguely hairy, slightly arrogant pieces of meat with a voice. The rage dripping from the vocals, the merciless rhythm, the black flashes that give the band their possessed mood... it all builds to a crescendo until there's a sudden lull. A clean voice, a solo, and off we go again: in just one track, Usquam reassures us. Not only does it pack a punch, but it's also well-crafted and varied enough to keep our attention and keep us coming back for more. We appreciate the mix of English, French and Latin that enhances the text and gives it a sacred and prophetic touch, somewhere between a story a witch would spit out by the fire and a dark ancestral curse. When Usquam slows down the pace, we shudder. The sinister intro to Athanor, the thick atmosphere of mystery in Arcana Nox, the sung lines at the end of Persephone accompanied by the martial rhythm preceding an execution: the atmospheres are carefully crafted and contribute to the breadth of the sound. Above all, Ex Nihilo is a wicked, biting album, oozing a visceral rage that acts as a link between cultures and eras, crossing time and space and giving the theatrical and sometimes epic compositions a touch of embodied madness.
Griot, skald, or possessed banshee as here: Usquam is interested in the universality in which patterns repeat themselves. Is it this universality that gives Ex Nihilo its effectiveness, inheriting its influences and inspirations to, in turn, propagate and inspire? This first album is both intimidating and catchy, a steamroller with a few poetic interludes whose vicious snarls are as much appreciated as their scope.
